MrBallen: From a basement spiral to Navy SEAL to fame

John Allen broke a college failure spiral with radical responsibility: combat, SEAL ostracism, and the storytelling empire he built from the wreckage.

MrBallen (John Allen)guestSteven Bartletthost

Dec 12, 20242h 3mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

150 min read · 30,016 words

0:00 – 2:03
Intro
1. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  I was in Afghanistan in 2014 as a Navy SEAL. We're in the middle of this gunfight, and a grenade came over the wall, and it detonated.
2. NANarrator
  Take cover.
3. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  And I'm waiting to either be shot by the enemy or I'm gonna bleed to death. And all that was running through my head was ... And that's the way I think people should look at their lives.
4. SBSteven Bartlett
  It's so interesting, because I've never actually heard someone give that kind of advice before.
5. NANarrator
  MrBullen is a former Navy SEAL turned master storyteller and content creator who uses his battlefield experiences and personal failures to inspire, educate, and help people overcome challenges to achieve their goals.
6. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  My family were very successful people with Pulitzer Prizes, PhDs, and then there's me, getting into street fights and about to get expelled. But it took becoming a colossal failure to realize, if you wanna fix this, you have to start with saying, "It's my fault," and then do something about it. But then fear becomes the thing keeping people from doing it. And it's the very select number of people in this life that say, "I'm gonna still do that thing that scares the (censored) out of me," that have the best and most fulfilling lives. And so I decided to become a Navy SEAL, because it's only a really small percent that make it through the grueling, mentally torturing training.
7. SBSteven Bartlett
  And what's the similarities that you noticed between the people that made it?
8. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Two words. It's (censored) . But then I realized the reality of the job. You kill people. And I had really leaned in to being as, like, alpha as I possibly could be, but there were just some things that I did, and I just... I struggled so, so bad. I had to face my demons.
9. SBSteven Bartlett
  What have you learnt about dealing with demons?
10. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  If you begin to have those thoughts, the only way I have found to sort of cope with them is ...
11. SBSteven Bartlett
  This has always blown my mind a little bit. 53% of you that listen to this show regularly haven't yet subscribed to this show. So could I ask you for a favor before we start? If you like this show and you like what we do here and you wanna support us, the free simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the subscribe button. And my commitment to you is, if you do that, then I'll do everything in my power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better for you every single week. We'll listen to your feedback, we'll find the guests that you want me to speak to, and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so much.
2:03 – 10:14
Becoming MrBallen
1. SBSteven Bartlett
  John.
2. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yes.
3. SBSteven Bartlett
  There are clues in your early context that suggest you might have walked the path that you've walked in your life. But there's also clues that suggest you absolutely would never have done what you've done.
4. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
5. SBSteven Bartlett
  So taking me back to that early context-
6. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
7. SBSteven Bartlett
  ... what do I need to know about that environment, the influences of that environment, to understand how you ended up where you are today?
8. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  I, I think it all starts with, you know, the family I was born into were, like, very successful academic people. So I was born in a, in a town called Quincy, Massachusetts. It's just south of Boston, Mass. And, you know, my, my mother, father, and two sisters are, like, brilliant minds, in like the academic sense of the word, just like brilliant. Uh, you know, my sister, one of my sisters, uh, has gone on to win two Pulitzer Prizes. My dad's won a Pulitzer Prize. My... And this isn't even flex, but to give you a sense of the people in my life, my other sister, like has a PhD, and she like worked out of a Harvard lab. My mom is a professional writer. And then there's me. (laughs)
9. SBSteven Bartlett
  (laughs)
10. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  When I was growing up, I, uh, I, I coulda done well in school, you know, but I didn't want to. It was sort of like my, my form of rebellion was being a bad student willfully, and I would like go out and party with my friends, and just was like trying to be sort of like a bad kid, uh, in a way. And also like the town I grew up in was sort of a... It was not a place where academics really thrived. It's like a really working class, like hard and tough place. I mean, uh, Quincy's becoming much, much nicer, but it was a little bit of a tough place, and I sort of wanted to be like an edgy, like tough guy. And so I'd like get into street fights and get my ass kicked, and like I'd like stay out drinking with my friends. But what it did is it set me up for like colossal failure, uh, by the time I got to college. I got into college because my mom, the professional writer, wrote my college essay. And my grades were horrible in high school. In fact, so bad that when I sent off my application, the, the school got in touch with me, and they were like, "Hey, your grades are not really what we're looking for, but boy, that essay was so beautiful, we're gonna give you a chance." And so I get into college, I go to the University of Massachusetts out in Western Mass. It's like where a lot of kids where I was growing up, that's where they went to school. It's a big party school. And I just immediately bombed. First semester, like I, I got, uh, a 1.016 GPA, which it should've been like a zero. I basically didn't go to class. I, uh, I was involved in this, this riot. So at some point the, uh, our football team, which was a team that no one cared about, even the people who went to the school, we didn't care about it. No offense to the Minutemen. They're very good now, but at the time, in 2006, they weren't. They made it to like this conference game or something. This is like not big time D1. This is like D1-AA, so like very high level football, but not gonna be on TV or anything.
11. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
12. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  And the, the college, the student body, again, they don't really care about the football team. But for some reason, when they lost this game, it just like instilled this need to riot on campus (laughs) .
13. SBSteven Bartlett
  (laughs)
14. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  And it was like concentrated in this one area of campus where I happened to live, and I like went out there and I was like breaking windows and being this horrible kid. And the, there's security cameras everywhere recording you. And it got to the point where at the end of the semester, there was like this witch hunt to, to find the people that had been involved in this riot, and there was like the, the website had posted, uh, the college police website had posted all these images of just faces of people in the crowd that were a part of it, and anybody could anonymously name people-
15. SBSteven Bartlett
  Like check in.
16. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  ... if they saw them, and it was like everybody got expelled. And I found pictures of me, and I had just got my grades back, 1.016, and at the same time, I'd been telling my brilliant parents, "Yeah, I'm doing great in school. Things are going really well. Getting good grades." And I had to tell them like, "Actually it's the opposite, and I'm probably gonna get expelled if I don't withdraw." So my dad comes out to the school and he like sits down with the dean, who also says, "John has all these violations of living in the dorm, like noise complaints and being a jerk. We're gonna kick him out of the dorms. Even if he stays at the school, he has to live off campus." And my, my mom and dad are like, "You're coming home."... uh, "We're done with this. Like, you're an adult and you can either, like, live at home and go to school or get a job, but, like, you're gonna be an adult." And so I come home and-
17. SBSteven Bartlett
  At what age?
18. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  ... I was, uh, 18.
19. SBSteven Bartlett
  18.
20. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  So I come home and I, uh, I was living in my mom's basement in Quincy, and I remember the first couple of weeks I was home, I, I actually felt mad at my parents. Like, (scoffs) "How dare they make me withdraw from the school, even though there's all this information that, like, it's completely my fault." But I, I had, like, an epiphany when I was literally in my mom's basement, when I sort of realized, like, "Oh, this is my fault. Like, I have created, like, a habit, pattern, and a way of thinking that's put me in my mom's basement with no direction. Like, I've been gifted all these opportunities that I've squandered." And something sort of changed in my head where it was like, "I don't wanna be a screw-up. I don't wanna be that." I'm looking at my, my family members as being so successful, and I just was like, "I can't be that." I'm suddenly becoming self-aware that that's the path I'm on. I'm gonna be the guy that, like, floundered everything and, and didn't amount to anything. And so I just made it simple. I was like, "I'm just gonna, like, go to a local school, get good grades, and, like, graduate from college. That's gonna be my focus for now." And I did that. I went to a local school. I got my grades up. I actually transferred back to the school that I withdrew from to finish out my, my couple of years in college. But the... It was like a drug, like, having a goal that I was working towards, like, doing something that was worth my time and, like, studying hard. I wa- I, I was, like, struggling with school, but I, I go... I, I worked so hard. I was in the library all the time, like, feeling... Like, getting to feel what it feels like to be working towards a goal and achieving it was, like, really addictive for me. And so by the time I was, like, in my last year in college, I actually, ironically, had no clue what I would do post-college. It was sort of like, "Well, the goal was just to graduate college. I don't really have a clue what's next." And I, I, I thought about briefly becoming a lawyer or something. I... Because I was studying philosophy and English, 'cause I liked those two subjects and they sort of fit the mold. But I'd always sort of had this draw, this calling to, to serve in the military, because my, uh... Some fam- some friends of mine in high school went off to serve, uh, in, in the military in 2006. Like, they went to Iraq and Afghanistan. But I, but I wanted to do something really hard in the military, 'cause I needed, like, a big goal, you know? And it, like... Graduating college was this goal that I had achieved, and I was like, "I wanna do something hard in the military," and that's when I got turned on to the SEAL teams. And the cool thing about the Navy SEAL teams is virtually anybody can apply to be a SEAL. Uh, you know, you have to, like, have the right physical fitness. You have to be a citizen. There's a few things, but basically anybody can try out. But it's only those who s- who survive the training that become SEALs, and it's a really small percentage of people. And it just really was the thing that was like, "Wait a minute. If I do that, if I go through, like, this, this baptism of going through this rigorous training, I'll become a guy that will no longer be viewed as, like, the, the screw-up in high school who sort of got it together with college. I'll be able to reinvent myself. I'll be able to, to serve in the military, which is something I, I felt the calling to do. It's a career that I can kind of progress into, and it's a big fricking challenge that's gonna require a whole bunch of training and prep before I get to go." And so I kind of just shifted my goal from graduate college to become a Navy SEAL, and everything fell in line, and then naturally after that, I became a YouTuber, which is an even longer story. But basically, I, yeah, became a SEAL, and then I got hurt, medically retired, and then I basically posted something online that went viral. And I love telling stories, as you can see from this long intro. Uh, and I just kept telling stories and now I'm here, so. But it started with, like, setting a goal and, and achieving it, and it's... Which sounds so basic, but I think a lot of people go through life just sort of doing stuff beca- (clears throat) because they were told to or they just sort of fell into it. I found, like, setting a goal that's really consciously something you care about, for whatever reason, and working hard to achieve it, it, like, organizes your whole life. And so my life, starting with coming home from men- from college and being in the basement, has been a series of set a goal and shoot for that goal, and that's all that
10:14 – 14:58
The Self-Awareness to Take Responsibility Changed Me
1. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  matters.
2. SBSteven Bartlett
  It's interesting, because even before that, there was something that had seemed to happen to you in that basement, which I consider to be the starting place, which is awareness.
3. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
4. SBSteven Bartlett
  It's, like, self-awareness, and with that self-awareness came responsibility. You said, "Actually, I need to stop blaming my mum and dad."
5. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
6. SBSteven Bartlett
  There's... "I have a role to play in this."
7. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
8. SBSteven Bartlett
  And that's really, really hard for a lot of people-
9. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  It is.
10. SBSteven Bartlett
  ... I think for everybody, to be truly aware of how you might be contributing to the circumstances of your own life.
11. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  It's a harsh truth when you realize it's your fault, or, or a big part of it is your fault, but that's what self-awareness is. Like, taking responsibility for the good and the bad.
12. SBSteven Bartlett
  And what's your relationship been like with responsibility and, like, what's your view on the importance of that, broadly?
13. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Hmm. I would say that when I was, you know, pre-basement moment, I was definitely in the mindset of playing the victim, and if something bad happened, it was somebody else's fault, and not taking responsibility for anything. I wa- I was the guy that would come home from school and I'd tell my mom, like, "You wouldn't believe it. We had a test today (scoffs) and Joey got a 50. I got a 65, but Joey got a 50." It's like you're sort of, like... That's the way you approach it, versus like, "I failed the test." Um, but when I sort of decided I would graduate college and organize my life around that and then become a SEAL, I realized that it's not enough to simply just say, "I'm gonna do this thing." Like, you need to own, like, the entire process, and, like, for example, in, uh, in SEAL training, there were a couple moments where, like, I, myself failed miserably, catastrophically at, like, tests and opportunities to, to be a leader, and I just, like, squandered it. In, in, in a way... So the way SEAL training works is it's very reputational. Like, as you go along, uh, in training, you know, it's like the closer you get to graduation, the closer you get to being a real SEAL, and so your instructors, those are active duty SEALs, and they're no longer viewing you towards the end of training as being just some, like, oh, candidate. Now it's like, "You could be my teammate. There's not too many of us." And so it changes from, "You aren't gonna make it," to, "You better do a good job, because I might need your help, you know, down the line."... and I remember in the final part of training, there's this confidence exercise where they basically expose your class to, uh, tear gas, which is something that's pretty standard in the military. Uh, and the only thing they say is, like, "This is a..." Like, "It's all about mentality here. It's a confidence booster. It's going to suck. It's gonna make you wanna feel like you're, you're, you're dying from this gas." And it's, like, a long exposure, and they, they, they set you up in this, like, square. You're all just standing, you're kneeling shoulder to shoulder, if you will, out in this open field on San Clemente Island in, in, in, in California. And all the instructors have their gas masks on, and they have these pool sticks, like, that you would swap, like, cr- trash out of a pool. But at the end, they have the CS grenade canisters, and they're like, "All right." They put their masks on. They, like, they fire off these CS grenades. This big white smoke comes out, and they, they ha- they hold out the pole, and you just, you get covered in CS gas. And the whole... All you have to do is not run. Just stay here and take it. It... That's the whole point. And I ran. It was like a fight or flight instinct completely. It was like before I... And it was instant. It wasn't like, uh, "Oh, this is really bad. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?" It was, like, instantaneously. I ran. I had to get tackled by one of the instructors 'cause I was just out. I wasn't even thinking. It was like p- And nobody else ran. This is the end of training. And so afterwards, it's like, I was brought into the, the amphitheater. There's this little theater where they would teach us classes about ordinance and whatever, and they were like, "Allen, stand up." And my, all my peers know I did this. All the instructors know I did this. And he just goes, the main instructor, he's like, "Allen, you're a fucking pussy. Sit down." He goes, "You're a fucking pussy, and I never wanna serve with you and neither should your n- and neither should your classmates. Sit down." And that was it. And I had to, from that point on for the rest of training, wear, uh, these, like... (laughs) It's almost like a bikini over my shorts, and it was, like, the worst moment ever because I, I'd made it so far into training, but I knew... And also, by the way, at this point, we weren't even home. I wasn't able to go home, see my wife. We're out at this island for a month. You don't, you work seven days a week. You're, you are in training until you're done. And the only choice was, like, own the fact that you did that. Don't make excuses for it. Like, let this show people my actual strength, which seems funny 'cause I did the thing I'm not supposed to do. But instead of, like, running from it, (sighs) literally, own it. Take responsibility for what you did and show people that, "You know what? I'm prepared to show up for work every day wearing these fucking trunks and, and be looked at as a lesser than to demonstrate that I'm
14:58 – 16:44
How You React After Making Mistakes Changes Everything
1. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  not."
2. SBSteven Bartlett
  There's something really important in that that's really, um, really also critical to business but just really critical to anyone that's a professional or in a relationship, which is if you make a mistake, you get the second opportunity, which is how you respond to the mistake you made.
3. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Absolutely.
4. SBSteven Bartlett
  And in fact, so many times in business, you know, when I was running a marketing business, we'd have clients, and we might drop the ball in some way.
5. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Mm-hmm.
6. SBSteven Bartlett
  But we can actually make the relationship stronger than it was before the mistake by how we responded.
7. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
8. SBSteven Bartlett
  So, making a quick phone call, apologizing, taking responsibility.
9. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah, I mean, I think that there definitely were some people that did carry that sort of, like, stigma into the teams 'cause right after we finished this, we kinda went into the SEAL teams. But I, I do think that there was definitely some people that... And I'm not even tooting my own horn. I really think this happened, that as a result of that moment, knew they could, like, trust that I was prepared to sort of, like, "I'm gonna take responsibility for me. I'm gonna do what I'm supposed to do. I wanna be the best team that I can be. Even at my lowest, you're still gonna get the best version of me."
10. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
11. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  And th- that doesn't mean I think I'm better than anybody else. It just means I'm an adult.
12. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
13. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  And, like, I think that's, that's a big part of being an adult, is responsibility is ultimately owning those mistakes. And sometimes your mistakes are painful and public and awful.
14. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
15. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  And that's the most important time to own them, and like you said, like, that's your opportunity in some ways not just to rectify the mistake but to become a stronger, better version of yourself. And I think that my mistake in college was a series of mistakes, my first semester of screwing it up and getting sent back home. But it was only when I recognized that it was my fault and I had to own that, that I was able to graduate college and try to become a Navy SEAL and then, in the process, like, have the, the CS grenade happen. But in some ways, that made me a better SEAL, you know? So I think that, like, in failure comes the best opportunity for success, which is something that I certainly didn't coin, but it's the truth.
16:44 – 19:21
What Is the Navy SEALs?
1. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
2. SBSteven Bartlett
  What is the Navy SEALS? 'Cause, you know, around the world, I think people are aware of the term Navy SEALs.
3. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Sure.
4. SBSteven Bartlett
  But we don't actually know fully what it is.
5. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah, so, um, every branch of, I think, basically every military in the world... This is a, a broad generalization, but it's, it's u- it's u- usually the case that virtually every branch of every military has some form of specialized unit that carries out s- special operations. It's the stuff that, you know, the Call of Duty video games and Modern Warfare, those are based on, like, the idea of specialized combat units that, that go out and do these kind of difficult and high-stakes missions. And so in, in the US, you have the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, and the Air Force, and each of them have, like, their, like, respective special operations divisions. Like, you have, uh, Marine Special Operations in the Marines. You have, uh, the PJs, the Pararescue Jumpers in the Air Force. Uh, there's, there's multiple, but of all the special operations units in America, of all the different branches, you could make the case that the most... And I'm gonna get some flak from people that disagree with me. The most, let's just say, well-known and potentially most skilled, and I say that carefully 'cause, of course, there are other, there are other groups, like the Green Berets, who are incredible at certain things. But the most skilled at multiple disciplines is very likely the Navy SEAL teams. And it's because the, the acronym SEAL stands for sea, air, land, so S-E and A-L. The idea is even though it's under the Navy, which is sort of, like, maritime and, and water, the reality is that the SEAL teams are a special operations group that can insert into virtually any...... any environment, sea, air, or land. They can also use multiple insertion platforms, whether it's diving, jumping, going in on land. It's like a highly versatile special operations group, whereas a lot of the other special operations groups, not just in the United States but internationally, are kind of specialized in certain geographies. Like you have mountain warfare specialists, you have... Like, D- uh, the Dutch have this incredible, uh, diving unit. Uh, but the SEALs are like, "We do everything."
6. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
7. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  And they also sort of came into prominence, they, they started in the '60s under JFK, but they really came into prominence post-9/11 because they were being sent out into the Middle East, which is, you know, it's a landlocked place, but this Navy special operations unit was being very successful carrying out, you know, kinetic operations all across the Middle East. So it's like a, a very famous, uh, jack-of-all-trades special operations group that, especially after the bin Laden raid as well, that sort of made them celebrities. But even before that, they were very well-known as, like, the jack-of-all-trades special operations group.
19:21 – 23:05
How Long Is Navy SEAL Training?
1. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
2. SBSteven Bartlett
  And how long is training? How long does it take to, to get through training and pass the other end?
3. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Broadly speaking, I would say it takes about two years, uh, but realistically, it takes a little bit longer, so you have, um... There's two ways to become a SEAL. You either go in as an enlisted person, so there's the enlisted component of the military, which is somebody basically without a college degree who just, like, raises their hand and just serves, like that's like the grunts of the world. Those are the enlisted community. Uh, and then you have the officer side, which is somebody who, at a minimum, needs to have, like, a college degree to apply, you go to, like, officer school. And in the SEAL teams, there's, like, a tiny, tiny number of officer SEALs and a massive number of enlisted SEALs. But they're two very different pathways into training. If you go the officer route, it's practically like an a- a political appointment just to get an opportunity. Like it's so, so difficult to even get a chance to try out, that what you get, and it's because there's just like a handful of spots available. That's, that's really all it was. So you have all these people on the enlisted side who actually have college degrees and could easily, like, become an officer in the military, who, let's say, have other opportunities that they could pursue with their college degree, but they wanna be a SEAL.
4. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
5. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  And so you have this big number of people that are electing to go be enlisted to try out to be SEALs, and that's important because it makes the enlisted side super competitive. You have, like, these professional athletes, and you have, like, Olympians, and you have, like, the best college athletes, and you have MMA fighters and wrestlers, and then, like, the random people like me who have no resume, and you all just show up for the class in San Diego that technically is six months long, but there's like... Before you even join the Navy, you need to basically compete for a spot to even have a chance to try out. And there's a whole application process before you've joined the Navy that can take years. And then let's say you get your chance. As an enlisted person, they're like, "Okay, you're gonna get a chance to go." Well, first you gotta go to boot camp. That's two months in Chicago. And technically you can fail out of it, but really you won't. It's sort of like a suck it up and get through it. But then at the end of boot camp, at least when I went through, you go to this other school, which is like a prep school. It's another two months in Chicago. Mind you, you haven't even started training yet. This is, like, potentially a year of pre-Navy, and now you're four months in to, like, you're in the Navy, but you're not really in SEAL training yet. You go to this prep school where you, like, learn how to swim and run, and you al- you already know how to do these things, but professional coaches work with you. The Navy invests a lot of money in getting you really strengthened up and mentally strengthened, because following the prep school, you go to San Diego, where you go through what's regarded as, like, the hardest part of SEAL training, which is, uh, it's called BUD/S, B-U-D/S, and it stands for Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL School, and it's basically imagine whatever you think of as boot camp, like military boot camp, make it not two months long, but six months long, 'cause most boot camps are about two, and make it, like, a thousand times more difficult. It's really the same concepts. It's like intense, grueling physical, emotional, and mental, like, torture for six months, and that's the part where everybody fails out and drops out. That's like the if you made a movie about SEAL training, you'd really only focus on the six months of BUD/S training. And in fact, you'd only focus on the first two months, 'cause that's the most physically challenging. And then once you finish that, you go to advanced training. You're still not a SEAL yet, and it's another six months of, like, learning how to actually do the job. So BUD/S is like, "Can you handle it?" Advanced training, or SEAL qualification training, is, "I'm gonna teach you how to shoot a gun with surgical precision. I'm gonna teach you how to jump out of a plane. I'm gonna teach you how to, like, use this technology, 'cause you need to know how to do the job." So learn the job, and then after that, you'll go to, like, or we did anyways, I don't know if they do this now, you go to, like, a language school for a month, or you'll go to, like, a, a medical school or some sort of school to give you additional qualifications, and then you go to your team. And so all told, you have about two years from, "I wanna be a NAVY SEAL," to, "I am now a NAVY SEAL." Two years is usually the mark.
23:05 – 27:07
The Difference Between Those Who Made It or Not
1. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
2. SBSteven Bartlett
  And what's the similarities that you noticed between the people that made it and didn't?
3. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  The thing that stands out, honestly, and this is what is pretty universally true, although there's some outliers, is the folks who show up to BUD/S, the candidates who show up to BUD/S that have, like, an incredible resume. There was a guy that showed up to training who literally played for the Arizona Diamondbacks. He's like 6'5", looks just like a god, and he's so humble. Like he's this big, strong professional baseball player who I r- I actually have a memory specifically of playing with his character in a video game.
4. SBSteven Bartlett
  Ah. (laughs)
5. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  And like y- there's, there's other people who, who are, like, professional football players and all that, and he washed out so quick, and a lot of the other guys with, with big resumes, like the sports and ath- and, and big accomplishments, they typically wash out really, really quickly, and it's not because they lack the physical to do it. They don't. They definitely don't. It's that if y- and this is generalizing 'cause this is not true of everybody, but let's take the guy who played for the Diamondbacks. So this person is used to being, generally speaking, the very best person at what they do their whole lives, and it's not 'cause there's anything wrong with them, it's just sort of a truth. That's how you became a professional baseball player.
6. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
7. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  That's how it works.In BUD/S, your instructors don't fucking care about who you were, and it's like, a point they make. They don't care at all about what you've done before. In fact, if they even suspect that you think you're special because you have some bullet point on your resume, like playing for the Diamondbacks, they will torture you and- and see if you really got it. They will single you out and specifically make you feel terrible, and- and tell your class to like, "Look at this guy, he can't even do push-ups. You played for the Diamondbacks? You can't even do push-ups." Even though the guy's doing push-ups just fine. But it's like, "Look at, he- he- that doesn't even count. That doesn't count. Do another one. Get in the water. Do this, do that." It's- it's a, it's a mind game.
8. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
9. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  But the guys like me? Who, I went to BUD/S, and I'm like, "I literally am a joke compared to the people that are here." I wasn't in great shape relative to my peers, I'm certainly not a professional athlete. The only thing on my resume is, well, I nearly flunked out of college but then managed to graduate college. That is the extent of my resume. I played a little baseball in high school. And so for me, I have very little to lose. Like, either I'll make it and that'll be amazing and I'll get to do the thing I wanna do, or I won't and people will say, "That's about right."
10. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
11. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  The folks that go in that have the resumes, on some level, they expect to be really good even if they're humble, and everybody in their personal lives also expects them to make it through, because who wouldn't? He played for the Diamondbacks.
12. SBSteven Bartlett
  Expectation, baby word.
13. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  It's brutal. And- and the course is too long to simply gut your way through it. The- the level of physical discomfort that you experience in BUD/S is so unbelievably high that it's not you gotta wanna be here, that's why they say, "You gotta wanna be here if you wanna make it through." It's you need to have something to hold onto in your brain that overrides the discomfort. And it can't be, "Oh, I need to make everybody else happy. I need to live up to expectations." Maybe that's strong enough for you. For most people it's not. Like, when you are at, like, your absolute lowest, like, what do you hold onto? And it's, for people like me it was like, "I have to prove myself to the w-" like, to myself. I wanna prove to myself that I can do this hard thing. Like, it was not even about serving in the military. It was accomplishing this goal because I've set my mind to it and I wanna- I wanna believe that I'm the guy that can set goals that are hard and achieve them. And so in- in my worst moments, I would go to that place where I'm like, "This is worth it to me."
14. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
15. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  But for other guys it's not. And so- so at the end when you graduate, you look around, and it's like a ragtag group of, like, short, sorta weird lookin' guys that don't in any way embody, like, what you would think of as, like... I mean, some guys do, some guys are unbelievable studs. But it's like a ragtag group of guys that just didn't quit, and a lot of it is because they had some sort of chip on their shoulder that internally drove them and it allowed them to persevere when things got so bad, 'cause things get so bad in
27:07 – 29:51
MrBallen’s Mentality Before and After SEAL Training
1. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  BUD/S.
2. SBSteven Bartlett
  If I were to meet the guy in his mother's basement, and-
3. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
4. SBSteven Bartlett
  ... then meet the guy who qualified from the SEALs training-
5. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
6. SBSteven Bartlett
  ... in terms of their mentality, like their psychology, how would they be different? What is it that, what evidence does the guy that g- graduated from SEAL training have that the other guy doesn't have? What is that? What's the difference?
7. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  I mean, not just to, like, shamelessly cycle back to this idea of responsibility, but I'm gonna do that. Before, when I first got to the basement, I've just arrived, I was really not even able to see what a mess I had made of my life. It wasn't like I knew I had screwed up and was blaming other people. It was more like my default setting was, "This is somebody else's fault. Somebody did this to me." Like, I actively remember being furious with my mom and dad for "making me" withdraw from college when I literally was about to get expelled. I had a terrible GPA, I couldn't afford to live in the ho- in the dorms. I had, I had shown no... there was no evidence to suggest I would succeed in college. It wasn't until I was, like, home in the basement and the sort of, like, living in my mom's basement with no direction that I- I s- it just sorta naturally happened. I was like, "Wait a minute. It's you. It's not them, it's you." And it seems so obvious now, but it took falling to the bottom, and also, by the way, kudos to my mom 'cause she's a single mom. She didn't give an eff. She was not like, "Don't worry, you'll figure it out." She was like, "No. You're gonna get a job, or you're gonna move out or whatever, and you're also gonna pay rent while you're here, and uh, that's it." Like, "This is your fault." And at first I'm mad, but it- it's sorta like it became this arduous thing I had to overcome. So, it- it was like no self-awareness, none, and genuinely blaming the world for my problems to, like, probably if anything, an extreme on the other side. Where, like, if- if you haven't already noticed, I'm s- like, talking about the CS gas thing that I mentioned to you earlier.
8. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
9. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  That's something that if that happened to other people, I don't know if they'd talk about it on such a public platform, especially just in our, in the SEAL community.
10. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
11. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Like, reputation is such a big thing that even talking about things that other people know about but that cast you in sort of a bad light-
12. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
13. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  ... reputationally? I think people would stay away from saying that, you know? Like, but for me, I view it as a strength to highlight not only the- the things that I'm good at, but the things that I've made a mess of and screwed up, because it shows other people that, like, I'm secure. So it's like, ultra self-aware and secure in my image, the opposite as the basement kid, and it took basically falling to the bottom, being home, no- no new opportunities in front of me, other people are off at college succeeding and here I am, I'm in mom's basement, for it to sink in that, like, if you wanna fix this, you have to start with saying, "It's my fault," and then do something about
29:51 – 32:52
Hitting Rock Bottom
1. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  it, and it worked.
2. SBSteven Bartlett
  This idea of rock bottom, it's so interesting and it sounds, um, sounds pretty tragic that sometimes people do need to go to the- the bottom on their own-
3. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
4. SBSteven Bartlett
  ... to realize that, as the quote says, "The pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of making a change." And I-
5. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  I've never heard that. That's actually a great quote.
6. SBSteven Bartlett
  ... probably was like, eight, like 18 years old and I was in, I was just dropped out of university and I saw someone on YouTube say, "The pain of, um, change happens when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of making a change."
7. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Interesting.
8. SBSteven Bartlett
  And this kinda speaks to why some people sometimes, when you listen to their stories, it wasn't until they hit the basement-... that they were able to l- look themselves in the mirror and then take actions in the right direction. But also sometimes when you try and help someone and you prop them up, like if your mother had gone, "Listen, uh, here's some money and, you know, here's some, uh... You don't have to pay rent."
9. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Right.
10. SBSteven Bartlett
  She would be propping you up a little bit and keeping you awake-
11. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Enabling way.
12. SBSteven Bartlett
  Yeah.
13. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
14. SBSteven Bartlett
  I'm, I'm trying to think about the kid that's listening to this right now that can relate.
15. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
16. SBSteven Bartlett
  Or the person in their life, they, they might be in a job or whatever, that can relate to knowing that there's something quite, not quite right in their life.
17. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
18. SBSteven Bartlett
  Maybe they, maybe they're at a point where they can start to look themselves in the mirror and take responsibility, but do they, do they have to go to rock bottom to start to change their life?
19. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Well, I think that part of the reason... Or, or I should say, this is more of a general statement that kinda answers this. Um, I, in, in a way, was fortunate because when I hit rock bottom, I, I am a person that does not have, what is it called? Paralysis by analysis. I'm sort of an impulsive person.
20. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
21. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  For better or worse. And so for me, it's like once I hit that rock bottom, it wasn't hard for me to sort of quickly find a good north star, which the first one was college. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do college, right?
22. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
23. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  And then when I was nearing the end of college, by this point I've sort of righted the ship at this point, but I wanted a new goal. It was like, oh, SEAL training. That checks some boxes. It's like, I wanna serve, check. Like, it's a super hard goal, check. I'll have to work for it. Like, it, it'll... It offers me a chance at reinvention and rebirth. Check. Okay, good. Like, I jump to that. That's what I do. I think there are plenty of people, and I'm... This is my guess, I don't know if it's true, who maybe have already hit rock bottom, and they wanna make a change. They know it's their fault, or whatever situation that they, they know they've contributed to it.
24. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
25. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  But they don't know what to do next, and there's so many choices. Think about it. If you're at rock bottom, in some ways, you have every choice in the world to make.
26. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
27. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  And I think that one of the things that I certainly preach when I talk about this at all, which I guess is in situations like this, is you don't need, like, a perfect idea. You just need something that checks enough boxes for you to be worth doing. So for me, it was like, okay, I'm in my mom's basement. I've done this to myself. I am the reason I'm not at school. I'm the reason that, like, my parents are embarrassed about their son. It's my fault. What do I need to do? Okay, well, I should, I should graduate school because that, that demonstrates that what happened at UMass is, is fixable. I, I can graduate school. I can do it. I'm not dumb. I can do that. Okay, fine. Gotta go to school. That was it.
28. SBSteven Bartlett
  Jocko-
29. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  It's like, it checks a box,
32:52 – 36:23
Advice for People Who Feel Stuck
1. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  so do it.
2. SBSteven Bartlett
  I think it was Jocko Willink that said to me... His friend had called him and was going through a difficult time in his life, divorce, lost his wife, lost his job, et cetera. And Jocko said something, words to the effect of, "When you're lost," in, like, a military context or whatever, "you need to start moving."
3. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yes.
4. SBSteven Bartlett
  "It doesn't necessarily matter which direction you move in, but you need to start moving in a direction." And that was... I was thinking about that as you said about this idea of, like, paralysis by analysis.
5. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
6. SBSteven Bartlett
  People, they might be at rock bottom, but they just don't know what to do, so they're just sat in the same situation. Certainty in that context is sometimes better for people than the uncertainty of, "What happens if I..." You know?
7. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  What if it's the wrong decision or something?
8. SBSteven Bartlett
  Yeah. Yeah.
9. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah, I mean, and, and also you gotta figure it's sort of like a, a self-perpetuating problem too, where if you... Let's say you've hit rock bottom, even if you don't know it, and you're like, "Oh, I wanna fix my life. I wanna do something with my life," let's say, the kind of generic rock bottom. Well, let's say you get paralysis by analysis and you, and you're not able to sort of, like, pick a path, and you go nowhere.
10. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
11. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  That only reinforces the idea that you're, oh, you screwed up again.
12. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
13. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  But you haven't. There's just too many choices, and you're allowing too many factors to be at play here. Jocko, however he said it, is dead on, and there's another way that's talked about in the military, which is, uh, an 80% solution now is oftentimes better than a 100% solution tomorrow. And it's all about, like, speed over certainty. In the military, it applies a lot of times. But that's the way I think people should generally, not always, but generally look at their lives if they haven't quite built anything yet. Whether, whether they're at rock bottom or just starting out, like they're young people and they're... Or whatever age you're at, if you just, if you feel like you need to make a change, like you said, the, the, the pain of staying the same is, is greater than making a change. If you're at that point and you kinda know it, think about what, what matters to you, whatever it is. Like, I, I like to equate it to when... Like, you're in the shower by yourself, and you're just having unfiltered true thoughts. Like, ask yourself, what do you really care about? Like, honest to God. Like, forget what society says you should care about. Let's say you really just wanna be famous, and that's, that's, that's the actual core, and you don't even know why, but that's what you want. Well, guess what? Listen to that part of you. It's not vain. It's a thing that matters to you. Similarly, if you, if you're like, "I wanna be just rich," great. If that's a real motivation for you, like, at your core, in the shower, it's just you, if that's really what drives you, great. Those are boxes that must be checked for something to be worth doing.
14. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
15. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  So it's like, have your shower thoughts and be real with yourself, like, what do you really actually care about? Not what society says, not what you want your family to... None of that stuff. For me, honestly, the, the reason the SEAL thing really paid- I wanted to do it ultimately is I wanted people to say, "That's John Allen, the Navy SEAL." Because to me, it was like I had been the black sheep in my family because of me. I had discovered this, but it's like, "Oh, his sisters have done this. Oh, his dad's done this. His mom's done this, and then there's John." I wanted something that sort of overrode the mediocrity and failure, and I felt like, what better thing, what more honorable thing? And, and also, I wanted to serve. That's another check. It's a big goal. That's difficult. That's a check. But ultimately, it was like, I want people to know that I became a Navy SEAL. That mattered to me. And you know what? It, it flies in the face of what Navy SEAL instructors tell you, which is, "You don't want- You shouldn't do this because you wanna be a Navy SEAL. You should do it 'cause you wanna serve the country." And, like, that's true, and what else are you gonna tell your students?
16. SBSteven Bartlett
  Yeah.
17. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  But if you really wanna be real about it, you gotta find your real motivation, and that, that box must be checked.
18. SBSteven Bartlett
  Must be checked.
36:23 – 39:43
I Almost Died: Finding Your True Motivation
1. SBSteven Bartlett
2. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
3. SBSteven Bartlett
  So I, I pause on the must be checked because...... once you become the Navy SEAL?
4. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
5. SBSteven Bartlett
  And everyone's saying, "That's John Allen, the Navy SEAL."
6. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Sure.
7. SBSteven Bartlett
  Does your motivation disappear? Or does it become something else? And it's really c- it's, I think it's really honest but also quite unorthodox advice to say, "Listen, if you, if you're in the shower and you're going, 'D- I just wanna be rich so I can prove those people wrong.'"
8. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
9. SBSteven Bartlett
  "Or I wanna be famous and prove these people wrong." Um, it's unorthodox advice to say to follow that.
10. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
11. SBSteven Bartlett
  (laughs) But I have to say, I just completely agree.
12. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
13. SBSteven Bartlett
  I agree because sometimes you have to have a hypothesis fail you, or some kind of idea fail you for you to scratch the itch. And that's why I was focusing on this idea of ticking the box.
14. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
15. SBSteven Bartlett
  It's gonna stay there.
16. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yes, it is.
17. SBSteven Bartlett
  Like, I don't know if you can go to therapy or do ayahuasca or something to get rid of that thing, but for me, until you pursue it and have it fail you or succeed-
18. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yep.
19. SBSteven Bartlett
  ... it's gonna stay there. Um-
20. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah, I mean, it, that, uh, ultimately, exactly what you said, if that box goes unchecked you might, in your life, eventually convince yourself that you never needed to check, to check that box. But at some point, at some point in your life when it becomes too late or you're about to die, you're on your deathbed, you will have regret. And I, like, I can actually speak to a specific instance in my life, which I had checked a box by this point, but I had one that I hadn't checked. I was, I was in Afghanistan in 2014, and we were in this alleyway and a grenade came over the wall, and it detonated next to a whole bunch of us, and I nearly bled to death. And I had this moment where I, I can't pull the tourniquets off of my kit that are rubber banded to my chest for quick access to stop the bleeding, but I was so weak and s- and, like, losing my vision. We're in the middle of this gunfight, I couldn't get them off, and I realize as I'm sitting in this alleyway in the middle of this, like, horrible place in Afghanistan, like, like the town was very chaotic and dangerous, and I'm waiting to either be shot by the enemy, who we know is on the other side of the wall that could be coming around, or I'm gonna bleed to death, or s- or there are RPGs being fired blindly in our direction. It's like, I'm about to die, 100%, I'm actively bleeding out, or I'm gonna be shot, and all I, that was running through my head, there was a couple thoughts. There was one that was kind of funny, now, which was, I was like, "Hmm, I wonder if my obituary will say, 'Jonathan Allen killed in action,' or, 'John Allen killed in action'?"
21. SBSteven Bartlett
  (laughs)
22. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  So that was going through my head, but I (laughs) also, in addition to that, I had this really acute sadness that I hadn't started a family yet. I didn't have kids. I was married, we'd been married for several years, and, and my wife and I had sort of, we'd sort of talked about having kids before that deployment, but we were like, "Oh, we'll have time." And I'm sitting there in this alley bleeding to death, or expecting to be shot to death, I'm, I'm at the end of my life, and it was like, "Holy shit, I wish I had a child." Yes, that's horrible for the kid, they lost their dad, but like, that was a box for me. I wanted a family. What was the first thing I did when I survived this and got home? We started a family.
23. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mmm.
24. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  You know? So it's like, that's sort of an extreme example, but I, I do really believe that a lot of people have boxes that are gonna go unchecked, but to your point also, just try to do it and fail, and believe it or not, you actually checked the box.
25. SBSteven Bartlett
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. That's actually really, really true. Yeah, and, you know, it's so interesting
39:43 – 45:34
Retiring Due to War PTSD
1. SBSteven Bartlett
  that, that, um... 'Cause I've never actually heard someone give that kind of advice before. What people say is, like, "Find your why," and they often are quite judgmental about what's motivating you.
2. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Sure.
3. SBSteven Bartlett
  So, the only, like, accepted motivation is something like, "I wanna serve my country."
4. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Right.
5. SBSteven Bartlett
  Or, "I wanna change the world."
6. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Right.
7. SBSteven Bartlett
  But actually, most of us are either, like, driven or dragged, as I say, which could be... Yeah, like driven is okay. You're very conscious of what's driving you and you're in control. But then being dragged is the insecurity, it's the shame, it's the, "I want, you know, my siblings are better than me and I wanna-"
8. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yep.
9. SBSteven Bartlett
  "... say, 'Fuck you,' to my parents." Whatever it might be. Um, very, very, very interesting. It's also even more interesting that you ended up where you are today. So you, you get medically discharged-
10. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yep.
11. SBSteven Bartlett
  ... from the military a- after the Afghanistan tour?
12. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  It was not immediately after, but basically between that and some mental issues I was having, I was pushed to see a psychologist. This is, like, years after. So 2014, that injury happens. I survive, obviously, uh, and I ended up getting surgery to sort of, like, my shoulder was banged up, and I, I got fixed up enough to deploy again, um, but I was just not fit to serve. Physically, I was really struggling, um, to keep up. I had some issues with my shoulders and my knees. I have shrapnel in my leg. Uh, but ultimately, I, I was recommended to a psych in the military, 'cause they were like, "Dude, you, you, you are not, like, a sane person. Things are not going well for you." Like, close friends of mine just sort of said, "I, I don't think this is, this is working out." And I was very angry. I, I had, like... Now I can say it, it's like I had very stereotypical, or whatever you wanna call it, PTSD. Like, I had not dealt with the near-death experience in Afghanistan and sort of how that went. And so I, I ended up going for a medical retirement, which was driven in part by the physical injuries, but also by, like, mentally I wasn't there. So I get, I get medically retired, uh, in, at the end of 2017, and you know, it's... I'd never really had a plan. (laughs) You know? It's like, I, I knew I was gonna get medically retired, which just means, like, you're gonna get out and there's gonna be, like, this amount of money you get paid, you know, this retirement. It's, it's not really enough to, to live on, realistically. You're gonna have to have a job. And, uh, you know, I, I, I basically, (laughs) I got out at the end of 2017 and I went on LinkedIn, and I'm like, "I guess that's where you get jobs," 'cause that's what I think people do. And I was, like, on LinkedIn and I wound up randomly connecting with this guy named Jordan Selleck, who is, he was living in New York at the time. He's this former investment banker who it just so happened at the time that I was on LinkedIn, doing this, like, kind of weird job search, that his best friend was a transitioning fighter pilot. Like, he was leaving the military, going to the private sector, was struggling with the transition, which is very common in the military, making that jump to the civilian world. And Jordan, who's, like, this very entrepreneurial guy, he was trying to prove to his friend, his friend's name was Austin, that, like...... "You must be alone. Like, you're so successful being a fighter pilot, like, you're gonna find a job." And he was, like, tr- he was doing this exercise where he was reaching out to, like, random veterans on LinkedIn and being like, "Hey, what are you doing, like, with your transition to the civilian world?" To prove to Austin that, like, you're basically complaining and you can go find a job. You're not a v- But he found, like, one, nobody really got back to him because they didn't know who he was. But I got back to him and I'm like, "Actually, you know what? I just got medically retired. I have no idea what I'm gonna do. I got kids. I'm stressed." They don't know, didn't know this guy. Uh, and so Jordan quickly went from trying to prove a point to his friend to he was like, "Oh. Well, hey, why don't you, like, come to New York and I'll just, like, introduce you to some people in my network." Uh, and out of that was born this, this charity that Jordan and I actually started called Elite Meet that's still around today. It's like a networking event. It's a series of networking events for transitioning military veterans and private sector, you know, hiring managers to meet and get jobs. So I did that for a little while. Ironically, my job became running a charity that helped other vets get jobs. (laughs)
13. NANarrator
  (laughs) Funny.
14. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Uh, but, uh, Jordan instilled in me, he was a big believer in Gary Vaynerchuk's style of social media, this sort of, like, bombard the internet with content and be, like, all in on content. Uh, and Jordan, he, he, he even had a similar sort of, he was similar to Gary V. And, and I, uh, I, I found it, like, really fascinating, the idea of social media and content creation, because when I was in the military, I didn't even have, or I might have had a YouTube account, but I certainly didn't post on it, didn't have social media. But I, I, with Jordan, we began using social media content to drive donations for this charity we're running together. Uh, but at some point I wanted to do more, like, with social media. I was doing storytelling, but narrative storytelling.
15. NANarrator
  Mm-hmm.
16. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Like writing out stories about military stuff to try to gener- generate donations. And I was like, "Yeah, I wanna, I wanna do something for myself with social media, like build a brand for myself." And I, I, I committed a cardinal sin, one that I was very aware of. So this is self-awareness but doing it anyways. Um, in the, the SEAL teams, and really I think in special operations generally, despite what you see in terms of books written and, like, movies made about SEALs, and you can Google SEALs and there's, like, 78 examples of SEALs that are publicly talk- publicly talking about being Navy SEALs, there is, like, this code of conduct amongst the active duty community that you don't talk about being a SEAL. That's not what ... You can say you are a SEAL. No one's telling you you literally have to lie about it. But being a SEAL is not something that's yours. Being a SEAL is, you were allowed to enter a community of people that were, like, fighting for a common goal together, struggling, bleeding, dying together. Like, the, the, the strength of the brand of SEAL, the SEAL brand, is built literally on people dying. And so you can't then leave the military and say, "Hey, look at me. I was a Navy SEAL," because that's for personal gain. You can't do that.
17. NANarrator
  Mm-hmm.
18. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  It's sort of a gray area.
45:34 – 49:15
Dishonored by the Navy SEAL Community
1. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
2. NANarrator
  I get it, yeah.
3. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  I began posting about being ... I was the quintessential, (scoffs) look at this guy-
4. NANarrator
  Mm-hmm.
5. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  ... Mr. Navy SEAL. Uh, at first it wasn't that way. It wasn't like one day I was like, "Guess what, guys? (laughs) I'm a Navy SEAL."
6. NANarrator
  Yeah, yeah.
7. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  But it, it began as like a, "Oh, I'm gonna just, like, have my own accounts and sort of tell stories about my experience as a SEAL to push people towards Elite Meet." But then quickly, as these began to succeed, not really but kind of, they got, like, 1,000 likes here or there, I was like, "Wow. That's, that's pretty cool." And I, like, began leaning a little more and more until finally I was, like, full send, like, the guy that you're not supposed to be. This was, like, in 2018, 2019. And dude, I got disowned by the Navy SEAL community. I mean, like hard.
8. NANarrator
  Give me specifics when you say disowned.
9. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Uh, I could pull up DMs, uh, from Instagram-
10. NANarrator
  Oh, DMs.
11. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  No, I ... So at first did not catch a whole lot of public c- At first, I think I was doing it and people sort of were like, "Well, he's doing this charity, Elite Meet, that's helping SEALs, is helping vets," but gradually as I sort of drifted farther and farther away from that into just, like, John the Navy SEAL ... Mind you, I'm not giving up anything sensitive. It isn't like I'm talking about stuff that's, like, problematic. It's really just doing some of this, you know?
12. NANarrator
  Yeah.
13. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Pumping my chest. I began receiving just some of the most painful messages I've ever gotten in my life. It's, it's, it's different than getting hate. You know, as MrBallen on the internet, I certainly get hate from time to time. But it's different because they don't know me. It's like they see somebody on the internet doing something they don't agree with or like and so they, they, they speak their opinion. I'm sure you, you are familiar. But it's not personal. It might feel personal at first, but you get used to it. This was actual SEALs who I knew who wanted me to know exactly who was sending this message. Like, writing me messages to be like, "Hey, I used to think of you this way, and now I think of you this way," with, like, detailed explanations of ... And talking about how at the team, like, "We all talk about how much you fucking suck," basically. And, like, I would g- Uh, I lived in Virginia Beach at the time, which is where, uh, the t- SEAL team, I was SEAL Team 2, that's where I was at. And so it's, it's, it's a big town, but it's where, like, a huge concentration of SEALs were. And during this time, I would, like, go out to, like, the grocery store and I would see people that I know. These are not, "Oh, I think that guy could be a SEAL." It's like, "Oh, no. I served with him. I know exactly who that is." And they'd, like, mean mug me and my family at the grocery store or the gym. Because remember, this is not, like, a normal group of people. This is, like, a group of highly trained killers, of, like, operators, people that, like, go to war. They're not afraid of conflict. And I have done something that in many ways has, like, tarnished their brand. Not their brand. That's not how they look at it. Tarnished their brotherhood. It, it's like I'm being selfish.
14. NANarrator
  Mm-hmm.
15. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  And I was revi- Uh, they hated me. I got, I got-... regularly, two to three messages, email, Instagram, wherever. I- I- I get- I get phone calls, voice messages of people leaving me just the most deep, cutting personal, like, "I ... This is how I know you, and this is what's being said about you, and this is how I feel about you." It was horrible. But, luckily, uh, I had already had the experience in my life, CS Gas thing, the coming home from college thing, of fairly quickly realizing that no matter how I justify this, no matter how I justify why I drifted into this arena, ultimately,
49:15 – 1:01:23
I Crossed the Line...
1. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  I knew what was go- ... I knew the line and I knew when I crossed the line of being ... No matter what the public thinks about SEAL content that you see on the inter- on the internet, I knew amongst the huge majority of people that will never be public about their service, the active duty guys and the, and the retired guys, I had crossed a line for them. And I was not dumb. I- I- I would have been just as upset if I was them, still active, looking at a guy like me. But instead of, like, getting mad at anybody or looking for retribution or trying to justify it, uh, I deleted it all at some point. I remember there was a night, I'm, like, sitting on my couch and I got a message from somebody that I would have said was one of my very close friends and it just said, "You suck." That's all it said. But ... And it sounds stupid, but this is somebody who's on Team 6, this is somebody who is ... I specifically trained with and was, like, very close with. Like, his wife and my wife were close. And, like, I know what the context of this message is. It's way more than, "You suck." It's, "We're not the same anymore." Like, "You're different and I look down on you." And I was like, "I can't do this." There's n- there is no amount of success that I could possibly achieve doing the Navy SEAL content stuff that would be worth what I'm going through right now. And so instead of being like, "I'm gonna just act like that didn't happen," I just removed all the content saved for a couple of very small specific things. And y- I hadn't lost the itch for making content, but it was like, "I can't do anything with regards to being a SEAL, because that's not worth it to me and I don't wanna do it." It felt wrong. And after trying things that never worked, like sketch comedy and, like, following trends. At one point, I was (laughs) ... My lowest, my lowest moment, w- my, my worst one was I, uh ... There was a trend on TikTok briefly where people would tell, like, sort of weirdly traumatic stories. Not traumatic, but, like, intense stories-
2. NANarrator
  Mm-hmm.
3. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  ... but with Auto-Tune. They'd use the feature-
4. NANarrator
  (laughs)
5. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  ... in TikTok that was Auto-Tune, and they'd, like, sort of sing it as Auto-Tune, but it would be, like, about the time they got, like, mugged.
6. NANarrator
  Okay.
7. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  And so, like, it- it's the- the- the contrast is so extreme, it's sort of interesting.
8. NANarrator
  Yeah.
9. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  (laughs) And I did-
10. NANarrator
  (laughs)
11. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  I did something like that and I made it, and I was like, "I cannot post this. This is, like, the worst thing I've ever made." Uh, but nothing worked. And I, I remember thinking, like, "Okay, you know, I- I- I don't have a clue what I could do that would be interesting." Um, and I actually ... I remember I had these two documents on my computer. This is, again, post-deleting everything. I'm, like, trying to make it on social media with something different. I had this one document that was, like, ideas for content that were not SEAL related, that were, like, totally divorced from that, s- the sketch comedy, the Auto-Tune, whatever it was. And I- I literally had exhausted all of them. But I had this other document that for ... I don't even know why I had separated this topic, but it was ... All I wrote on it was, "Dyatlov Pass." So, personally, I am interested in the strange, dark and mysterious, the tagline that's become the MrBallen thing. Basically, unsolved mysteries, but not like ... Don't think true crime necessarily. Think, like, world-level mysteries, like, what's out there? Is there life out there? Like, why is this portion of Antarctica blacked out on Google Earth? Like, the deep, like, scintillating stuff that no one really has an answer to. I- I've always been drawn to that stuff. And I, uh ... There's a really famous mystery called the Dyatlov Pass, and it's about these hikers in the '50s, these nine really experienced hikers, uh, who are going for their, what's called their Level 3 Mountaineering Test, which sounds sort of like run-of-the-mill. But in fact, in- in Soviet Russia in the 1950s, this was like master mountaineer. Nobody had Level 3. This is, like, the top. If you did this, you're, like, the best climbers in the country, if not potentially the world. This is a big deal. And the way you pass your Level 3 is you and the people taking it with you, there was nine of them, you have to map out this route through this really rugged part of whatever mountain you're gonna use. They used the Ural Mountains, so big, snow-stacked, like, huge, icy mountains. And you map out this course that, like, checks the boxes of difficulty and you- you're effectively timed. You have to start on a particular day and time, and they have people set up along the way, scheduled checkpoints, if you will. And so they brought cameras with them, this group. This is, again, 1952 I think it was. And so this- these young nine hikers who are, like, so excited to do this test. No one's stressed. They're so pumped. There's a couple of couples in there. They set off on this, this journey and I think they reached the first checkpoint, I forget what it is, but they didn't make it to whatever second checkpoint or whatever it was. And there was a protocol for the people who were sort of sponsoring this test that were part of the checkpoints that knew this- ... They knew what was going on where if they missed a checkpoint, there's, like, this big search that goes out to make sure they're okay, even though the- even though there's some expectation that they might not make a checkpoint by, like, a day-
12. NANarrator
  Mm-hmm.
13. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  ... 'cause it- it's- it's a difficult test. But the protocol is, like, really extreme. As soon as they go missing, it's like the army gets involved and they go and follow the route to find the hikers. So they miss the checkpoint, this protocol is enacted, and not only are there pictures that we will get from the hikers, but there was cameras that came with the search crew. They f- they follow the trail that they're supposed to be on. This is, again, uh, there's no trees. It's just, like, the tundra. It's, like, ice and snow and mountains.... and they come across this mountain off in the distance and they see on the windswept side of the mountain, basically halfway up, are these tents that are just these, like, canvas tents. Can barely see 'em, but they're s- they're situated right in the middle of the, of the slope, which is, like, s- strategically one of the worst places you can place these tents. So immediately they're thinking, one, it has to be the hikers because who else is out here right now? But two, why in the world would these incredibly talented hikers or mountaineers, why would they ever pitch their tent there? This is the most hazardous part. The wind can whip you off. You either go to the top and over or you stay to the bottom. Let's say you begun hiking up that mountain, you get halfway and you're like, "Oh, I can't make it."
14. NANarrator
  Mm-hmm.
15. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  You better go back down and make ten- and make your camp down there. So they see this- these tents. They're in the wrong spot. They go up to the tents and the hikers aren't there. They're not in there. The- there's pictures of this too. The tents inside had stacks of clothing neatly folded and, and placed in the corners, like, as if they hadn't... They left their clothes behind and the, and the tents themselves were cut open, like, with a knife, but somehow they deduced that they had been cut open but from the inside. So s- presumably, one or multiple of the mountaineers chose to cut open these tents in, like, negative 50 degree weather, and then there were all these prints in the snow that led down the mountain and some of the prints were bare feet, some had one shoe and one bare foot, and it's all nine of the hikers. They, they spotted these prints and they follow the prints down the hill or the mountain, it's a big space, and they find this little crops of trees. There's only a few, few areas in the Ural Mountains, in this part of the Ural Mountains, that have trees and there's this little group of trees. And when they get to the trees, they find three of the hikers and they're all deceased and there's one who's basically almost naked s- uh, wrapped up on the ground. There's pictures of this. Uh, there's one who I believe was draped over one of the branches up in one of the trees and then another one that was also on the ground as well. And there's these deep scratch marks in the tree, like gouges on the tree as if some animal had been scratching at this tree, and all three of these hikers are deceased and they're, they're s- it looks like exposure, but they're not really wearing the right clothing or they're missing pieces of clothing, but they're all deceased. There's more footprints that lead away from those three about a mile, kind of, back in the direction the search party had come from and there's this big snowdrift that created sort of like a snow cave underneath it and the footprints lead into the snow cave where the other six hikers were and they're all deceased as well. Except in there, the hikers had seemingly exchanged clothing and they know this because the women were wearing men's clothing and vice versa. Some of their clothes had trace levels of radiation and some of them had parts of their face removed it looked like, lips, nose, ears. It almost looked like, like surgical precision removal. They're all deceased and, uh, one of the injuries, there was a person in there who their chest had basically been caved in and it was deduced that the impact it would've taken, there was no, there was no lacerations, just their chest was caved in. The impact would've been equivalent to like a speeding car smashing into you at full speed, but there's no sign of anything that could have done this damage, and so they're all deceased. And so the Soviet government, they launch an investigation and during this investigation they discover that there was a huge military exercise, a Russian military exercise, taking place in the Ural Mountains who had no idea about these hikers. They have no clue that the level three mountaineering test is going on. That's not even on their radar and they're, you know, 15, 20 miles away. And one of their senior commanders on the same night that it's believed the hikers all died and whatever happened to them happened, he began noticing all these strange lights in the sky over the Ural Mountains going up and down and moving all around to the point where he actually thought it was a- another country, a foreign country. "Are they invading us?" And he, he literally thought it was, like, an invasion of Russia and he sent out messages to say, "Hey, what's happening over there?" having no idea that he was pointing to the one spot where these hikers were. So during this investigation, they discover that. Families are clamoring for information about their lost loved ones. No one- nobody has any idea what, what, what's going on and suddenly the Soviet government says, "Oh, we're gonna shut this investigation down. All we know is that the nine hikers who died, died from an unknown, unnatural force." Sealed. And to date, even though there was actually a recent investiga- a reinvestigation done in 2020, uh, it's remained, like, one of the great unsolved mysteries in part because it's got this like, oh, the, the Russian government sealed it and there's no more information. What do they mean unknown, uh, unnatural force? But there's pictures of the tent, of the bodies, of all this stuff. And so I, uh, I always thought that was a fascinating story and I love stories like that and I, I was at this waterpark in Pennsylvania with my family, an indoor waterpark, and at this point I've exhausted the one list. You know, nothing's worked on social media and this new thing, TikTok, had sort of begun to happen. Uh, I didn't really even know what it was, but I was like, "Maybe I'll try posting on there, you know, because it's a, it's a new platform. Maybe that'll work." And I was like, "But I bet I, I wanna try something else, you know, 'cause these haven't- these ideas haven't worked." And so, like, in my hotel room, I tell my wife and three kids like, "Go down to the waterpark. I'll meet you down there in a minute." And I just pull out the phone and I do a 60 second rendition of that and I was like, "Hey, you know, at the end of this, you're gonna Google two- you're gonna Google two words." And I tell this brief story about this, this crazy mystery and I'm like, "That's called the Dyatlov Pass Mystery." That's the name of the pass they were in when they were found. And I post this video to my account that has no followers. It's like the MrBallen account. There's a story behind that, but it's like a- it's a nothing account. Post it and really no expectation that this is gonna amount to anything. I leave my phone in the room because I'm going down to the waterpark. I can't waterproof my phone. I'll be with my kids. And when I came back up a few hours later and I picked up my phone, I couldn't even get it to turn on. Like, it was like, I was like, "Oh, is- is it off? Is the power dead?" And I finally get it on and it's just like, brrr, like notifications like mad from this video. There's over five million views on this video. Mind you, everything I've ever posted collectively has maybe been, like, 100,000 views.
16. NANarrator
  (laughs)
17. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  So this is, like, massive virality, but it was utterly divorced...... from SEAL stuff. This is like pure, I think this is fascinating and I love telling stories. And that wasn't like, "Oh boy, here's a business opportunity." It was more like, "Oh my God, this is so cool. I'm gonna tell more stories like that 'cause this is what I like." And I just began making story after story that sort of fell in line with that, and the, and it happened to fall at literally the start of the pandemic. So it's like suddenly everybody is not only on their phones, but they're on TikTok. And everybody on TikTok is like mostly kids dancing, and also me-
18. SBSteven Bartlett
  (laughs)
19. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  ... telling stories with a flannel and backwards hat. And so the account just blew up like mad. I transitioned to YouTube, and I've, I've just been telling stories ever since.
1:01:23 – 1:03:35
What Happened to Those 9 Hikers
1. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
2. SBSteven Bartlett
  So first and foremost, I have to ask, what do you think happened to those hikers? What do you-
3. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Man, I don't know.
4. SBSteven Bartlett
  ... if you had to guess.
5. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  I don't know. So the, they, they reopened the investigation, like I said, in 2020. Uh, it, I, I don't claim this to be true, but I think it might have been in part because of the viral- the virality of that, that video.
6. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
7. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Suddenly there's this newfound interest of people googling at the Outlaw Pass. Um, and they concluded that there was an ice slab that broke off and killed them. But it's like, how does that account for (laughs) like the clothes being exchanged, the, the potential radioactive nature of their clothes, like what the, the, the military guy saw with the lights? There's too many things that don't get explained. Um, it is true that like when you become hypothermic, when you c- when y- when you become truly hypothermic and you're nearing like the end basically, you're about to die from exposure, uh, it's you, you become warm to the point where you're hot and you actually take your clothes off.
8. SBSteven Bartlett
  Oh, really?
9. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah. It's a well-documented thing. So you could say, okay, so they're, they're, they've, they've pitched a terrible place on the, on the mountain. They're, they're being exposed to the elements. They're basically freezing. Maybe they, d- maybe as skilled as they were, they weren't really prepared for the weather, and so they became hypothermic. And let's say maybe an avalanche or an ice slab did come down, and maybe they got hit by the ice slab and now they're hypothermic, they're taking their clothes off. But it's like, okay, what are all the marks in the tree? You know, why are, why are their clothes radioactive? What did the government mean when they said an unknown unnatural forest back in the 1950s? What were the lights seen by the, the military guy? There's too many unanswered questions. So I, uh, admittedly am a huge skeptic, and if anything doing, uh, creating this content has only made me more skeptical 'cause there's so much stuff that gets put out that's not true and it's just like totally made up. But this remains one of those stories that just sort of makes you wonder like, is it possible there's stuff out there that we don't necessarily understand, like supernatural forces or, you know, extraterrestrials? Like I'd say this is a, a story that certainly opens the possibility. But I also would be perfectly fine to hear that it actually turns out here's all the things that happened that makes that completely reasonable. Maybe there was a, a leak of some kind that like leaked out radiation or who knows what. So I'm open to it, but I think it's, it's one of the few cases that, that seems like could make a case for paranormal.
1:03:35 – 1:06:59
Advice for Finding What Motivates You
1. SBSteven Bartlett
  And my next question is, as you reflect on the journey of your life-
2. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
3. SBSteven Bartlett
  ... from, from the basement to the SEALs to then producing the SEALs content, getting disowned from your SEALs brotherhood because of that, then stumbling across this TikTok thing-
4. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
5. SBSteven Bartlett
  ... then YouTube and everything else that's happened, when you look back and go like, "How can I give anybody advice on how to stumble into their thing-"
6. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Hmm.
7. SBSteven Bartlett
  "... based on the actions, the intentional actions that I took that brought me here?"
8. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  So one of the things that my wife and I often find ourselves saying, uh, is like, "Wow, like we, the timing on things is just amazing. We, we are so lucky with timing." And I'll give you a couple examples. So when I was getting medically retired from the military, there was a time where I actually was gonna be pushed out, like actually cut from the military, and it was gonna be like a year earlier than when I actually did. And so it's, it was like, "Hey, you're gonna get medically retired, and it's happening tomorrow." And I didn't have a, I didn't have a job lined up. I didn't have anything lined up. And that's actually when I began reaching out and I met Jordan, and it was like really quickly we, we came up with this Elite Meat thing.
9. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
10. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  But then after the Elite Meat thing actually had some legs and we're getting donations in, we're putting these, these cool events on, and I have like this feeble little salary coming in from it plus my retirement, I'm like, "Okay, I can keep, I can keep things afloat for a little while until I figure out the next thing." Right as that happened, so out of necessity, I've, I've, I've found a way to, to make an income within like a month of needing to have an income. The Navy says, "Actually, we're gonna extend your contract for an extra..." I think it was eight months or something. And so suddenly I had the, uh, the opportunity with Jordan and Elite Meat, but also got eight more months or 10 months, six. I forgot what it was. It was, it was less than a year, but it was a lot more time in the Navy, but I really didn't have to do much in the Navy.
11. SBSteven Bartlett
  Yeah.
12. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  I, I was already on the medical discharge way. I basically had to go to work and like be there, like a couple hours a week. It was not hard. But it meant I got paid through the Navy, and so it allowed me really to not worry about pulling money from Elite Meat and pulling a salary. I can just grow Elite Meat with Jordan and get paid by the Navy. It's like the Navy is incubating Elite Meat.
13. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
14. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  But Elite Meat wouldn't have existed if I didn't have that, "Oh my God, I'm getting out in a month. I have to do something about it."
15. SBSteven Bartlett
  Mm-hmm.
16. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  And so it feels like, oh, the timing's so perfect. Like, I started Elite Meat with Jordan, and then I was granted this extra time with the Navy. It fostered this company. It incubated this company. But no, I've sort of always looked at the, looked at my life as being like, man, there's just such amazing timing on things. Like I just feel like we're so blessed with the timing. Like when, like the Ti- the TikTok thing, like I just so happen to, to like be making this video when suddenly everybody's on TikTok at the beginning of the pandemic. Yeah, that's insane timing for sure, and I'm not denying that that's a timing thing. But also I'm somebody that is f- perfectly willing to take a chance and do something. Like I don't, I don't get stuck on, is this a good idea or not? It's like, I'm just gonna try this thing. And it's the people that are sort of willing to quickly check a box and do this thing that will be in a position to where timing can benefit you. If you're constantly like, "Ah, I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking of..." things are gonna pass you by. And so I, I lo- I forget what the question was, but essentially...... the, the advice I would give is like, really, it's sort of what Jocko said. It's this idea of, like, you just gotta start moving, because it's amazing what doors begin to open up for you if you're already on the move. If you're stationary, they don't open.
17. SBSteven Bartlett
  It's interesting,
1:06:59 – 1:14:24
The Best Things in Life Are on the Other Side of Fear
1. SBSteven Bartlett
  'cause as you were talking about timing, I was thinking, "That's not what I think the answer is."
2. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  (laughs)
3. SBSteven Bartlett
  I was thinking that timing is one of those things you, you see in hindsight and go, "Gosh, wasn't that perfect timing?"
4. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Sure.
5. SBSteven Bartlett
  But for it to be perfect timing, you need to be the kinda guy who's willing to send their kids down to the pool with your wife and make a TikTok video on a platform you know very little about-
6. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
7. SBSteven Bartlett
  ... doing something you've never done before.
8. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Right.
9. SBSteven Bartlett
  And it's actually in that moment that I think you're, that's your, like, moment of brilliance. That's when your life pivots.
10. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
11. SBSteven Bartlett
  Because genuinely, 99.9% of people would not be making a video on a platform they don't know much about-
12. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Right.
13. SBSteven Bartlett
  ... on a subject that they've never made a, a video about before.
14. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Right.
15. SBSteven Bartlett
  And your story's, like, riddled with those moments where, like even responding to the guy on LinkedIn-
16. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
17. SBSteven Bartlett
  ... you said most people didn't reply.
18. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  That's right. True.
19. SBSteven Bartlett
  "But I responded," and then you went and met him in New York or something-
20. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yep.
21. SBSteven Bartlett
  ... and that crea- So, in, uh, in hindsight, yes, it looks like timing, but actually it's that you were, in moments where you were lost, you got moving, you did something, you had a bias towards action.
22. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  Yeah.
23. SBSteven Bartlett
  And failure bec- is feedback, feedback is knowledge, knowledge is power. So you, it was, it's interesting, 'cause when you're talking about, like, your bias of just, like, do something, aim at something, what, what it appears is happening there is even if the thing fails, like some of the things you tried failed, at least you're getting feedback.
24. MAMrBallen (John Allen)
  True.
25. SBSteven Bartlett
  And then the feedback's informing what you do next. Like you said, "I did the, uh, um, the SEALs thing on LinkedIn." You learned some stuff about social media there. Okay, it didn't work out how you wished, but you took that into the next test.

Episode duration: 2:03:37

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Transcript of episode rDyTyppGxSg

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Intro

Becoming MrBallen

The Self-Awareness to Take Responsibility Changed Me

How You React After Making Mistakes Changes Everything

What Is the Navy SEALs?

How Long Is Navy SEAL Training?

The Difference Between Those Who Made It or Not

MrBallen’s Mentality Before and After SEAL Training

Hitting Rock Bottom

Advice for People Who Feel Stuck

I Almost Died: Finding Your True Motivation

Retiring Due to War PTSD

Dishonored by the Navy SEAL Community

I Crossed the Line...

What Happened to Those 9 Hikers

Advice for Finding What Motivates You

The Best Things in Life Are on the Other Side of Fear

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