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From Navy SEAL to SCARY YouTuber · Crime and Horror

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up, everybody. My name is John Allen. I was
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: in Navy seal for a little while and then I
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: got out and became a scary storyteller on the Internet
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: under the name mister Balin. I'm thirty one. I've been
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: married to my wife, Amanda for almost ten years. We
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: met in college, and we have two daughters and we're
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: about to have our son literally next week, so you know,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: fingers crossed that that goes well. A couple of weeks ago,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I put a story out on my Instagram that just asked, Hey,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: if you have any questions for me, I'm going to
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: do a Q and A on my YouTube channel, and
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I was just floored by the number of questions people
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: had for me. It was incredibly flattering, so thank you.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I kind of did the easy button and generalized questions
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: that were being asked more than once and created a
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: list of questions that I'm going to go through on
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: this video today before we get started. If you're a
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: and then you come to the right place, because that's
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: all I do, and I upload three to four even
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: five times every week. So if that's of interest to you.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Please push the like button into the Grand Canyon and
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: also subscribe to my channel and on all post notifications.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: We don't miss any of my weekly uploods. All right,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: let's get going. First question, where did I grow up? So?
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I grew up in Quincy, Massachusetts. It's a town just
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: south of Boston, about ten minutes south, about one hundred
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: thousand people that live there. It's a fierce New England
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: sports town, Red Sox, Bruins, Patriots, Celtics. Somebody asked me
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: about my famous while We're Young mother story. When I
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: was in high school in Quinsy, I had a homeroom
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: period in my schedule, basically a free time period where
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I was in the same room as one of my
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: older sister's really close friends, and I just naturally sat
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: next to her. There was nothing going on between us.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I was just a knewer because she's friends with my sister,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and apparently her boyfriend really took exception to that. He
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: thought that I was like hitting on her and trying
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: to take her away from him. I wasn't. I didn't
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: even know this was going on, but either way, apparently
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: it got out that I was like you know, hitting
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: on his girlfriend, and so I was challenged to a fight.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: So Quincy. It's interesting because when I was growing up,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: street fighting was like a really big part of the culture.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: It was like a time honor tradition that at some
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: point you're probably gonna get into a fistfight with somebody
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: and you gotta like defend your honor. You know, That's
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: just how it was. And the people I hung out with,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: my circle of friends, they were really these guys are tough.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, everybody knew these guys were tough, and Quincy, I
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: wasn't tough.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I was around the tough guys. I wasn't a tough guy,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: but I thought of myself as being very tough. And
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: so when it came up that Paul wanted to fight me,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm gonna beat the guy. And I was
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: so confident. Never been in a fight. I've been around
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: other people fighting, but not my own. And so the
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: fight was scheduled for the day before Thanksgiving. This is
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: my sophomore year of high school and Paul was a junior.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I remember on the day of the fight, I'm in
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  Speaker 1: the halls of my high school and Paul was like
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: this big time hockey player and he's like the captain
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: of the team whatever, And I was talking so much
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: crap about Paul. People started to kind of buy into
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the hype that I was like the secret tough guy,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: especially because the people I was around, and like all
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: day in the halls, I'm like talking so much crap
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: about Paul, and people would come up to him be like,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: hey man, you get to take it easy on Paul. Dude,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: like he's a good guy. Don't hurt him. We need him,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: we need him for the for the hockey season. Okay,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: please don't hurt him. I'm like, yeah, I'll try not
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: to hurt him. So we get up to this field
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  Speaker 1: and I show up with this huge posse fifty people
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: that show up with me, and I'm like, no shadow boxing.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I'm such an idiot. I'm like so cocky. We get
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: up there and Paul's not there yet, and I'm like, it'schstathetic.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: He's afraid of me. He's not even gonna make it here.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: And so like half an hour goes by and I'm
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  Speaker 1: getting even more confident, like, yeah, he's just scared of me.
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  Speaker 1: And then of course Paul shows up with no posse.
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  Speaker 1: He shows up with one guy coms can be and
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  Speaker 1: he gets out and walks up this hill to where
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I am. I'm like, you know, at the top of
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  Speaker 1: the hill, getting ready, and I have this line where
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: he's getting closer and closer to me, and he's he's late, remember,
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  Speaker 1: And as he's getting closer to me, I go, whll
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  Speaker 1: we young mother, like s if I'm gonna beat him up?
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  Speaker 1: And then he's been so late.
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  Speaker 2: He proceeds to beat the shit out of me, the
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  Speaker 2: absolute sh out of me in front of the whole school,
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  Speaker 2: and everybody heard me say my big line like it was.
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  Speaker 1: It was so outrageous that like, not only did all
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: of my peers know me for this, but even my
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: teachers would come up and be like, hey man, how
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: was that fight yesterday? So that was that was Quincy.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: That's Quincy in a nutshell. So the next question was
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: what inspired me to ultimately leave Quincy and become a
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Navy seal, obviously to compensate for the loss to Paul. Now,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the truth is, I came from a family that was really,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: really successful. I came from a family where academic achievement
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: was always heralded as kind of the pinnacle of success.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: And while I certainly had the aptitude to be a
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: good student, I instead was busy getting my sticked by
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Paul on the day for Thanksgiving. Now I rebelled, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I didn't want to be an academic. But my way
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: of rebelling was not to like put my energy into
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: something else and be good at it. It was just
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: to like be a lousy student and call that rebellion.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: And so by the end of high school I had
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: kind of socio grades. I was a good baseball player
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: growing up, but by the time I got to my
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: senior year, it was like, huh, so I kind of
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: squandered baseball because I stopped really trying it all. My
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: grades were pretty bad, and I just realized that, you know,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: I've kind of done nothing with my life. My mom,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: who's a professional writer, she ended up getting me into college.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: She wrote my college essay, and in fact, my grades
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: were so bad, but my essay was so good that
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: the college reached out to me and they were like, hey,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: you're kind of a non traditional candidate here because your
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: grades are awful, but your essay was so good, you
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: can come to our school. And so I got accepted
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: into the University of Massachusetts located in Amherst, Massachusetts. I
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: get to Amherst and I promptly fail out effectively after
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: one semester. I was spending my time not going to class,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: and that's pretty much it. There was a big riot
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: on campus that I may or may not have been
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: involved in, and there were some images of me, and
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: so I had to withdraw from the school to avoid
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: failing out slash getting in trouble for this riot. And
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: I remember I came back home and I'm literally living
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: in my mother's basement, and it really dawned on me
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: now that I hadn't done much at the end of
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: high school and my mom had hooked it up and
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: got me into college. Now I've blown that too. I
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: remember feeling so pathetic, What have you done here? You
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: are a joke. So I decided that I didn't want
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: to be a failure anymore. I wanted to doing with
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: my life, and I figured the first step is graduating college,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: and so I ended up getting into another school locally
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  Speaker 1: in Boston, so the University of Massachusetts, Boston, it's a
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: different campus. For three semesters went there. I worked at
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  Speaker 1: a gym in the morning at like five am checking
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: people into a gym, and then I would take the
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: train in to Boston take some classes there, and then
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: i'd come home and stay in my mom's basement. It
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: was a really important time in my life because it
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: was like the first time I was holding myself accountable.
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  Speaker 1: I had no sympathy for my mom or my parents.
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  Speaker 1: They're like, you screwed it up. You can figure out college,
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  Speaker 1: you know, do whatever you gotta do, but you're getting
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: your life together on your own, which was something I
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: needed in my life for sure. It was around this
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  Speaker 1: time that I started thinking about the military, because a
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: lot of my friends in high school had joined the
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Marine Corps and gone overseas to Iraq and to Afghanistan,
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  Speaker 1: and I really idolized them, and I always had a
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  Speaker 1: real interest in the military. And it was around this time,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: these formative years where my mom, of all people, her
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: best friend's two brothers were both retiring Navy Seals, and
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  Speaker 1: my mom was like, well, why don't you go talk
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: to them about the mild And I'm like, wow, that's
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: so cool. I've like played Navy Seals and video games,
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  Speaker 1: and so I went and met with them, and I
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  Speaker 1: was just so taken with them as people. The thing
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: with Navy seal training, if you don't know anything about it,
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  Speaker 1: it's incredibly accessible. Anybody, for the most part, can try out,
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  Speaker 1: but almost no one makes it through the rigorous training.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: I'm generalizing, but that's kind of how it works. So
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: in order to succeed in the training pipe plum wage
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: is very long, very difficult. You just got to be
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: able to suck it up and suffer for a really
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: long time. And if you make it through all that,
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  Speaker 1: you can become a Navy Seal. And it's kind of
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: like you're reborn in a way, and that's the way
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: they were talking about becoming a seal. It's like whoever
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: you were before you became a seal kind of goes
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  Speaker 1: away and you become something new. And it really spoke
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: to me. And I was at that point in my
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: life where I was just starting to get my life
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: back together, taking classes and trying to graduate, and it
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  Speaker 1: just seemed like I had suddenly discovered the thing that
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: was perfect for me. If I could just get through
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Navy Seal training, I could be in the military, which
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: is something I was interested in. I would be able
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: to also kind of overwrite a lot of the bad
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: decisions I had made and a lot of the mediocrity
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: in my life, so that when people look back at me,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: it will not be the guy that could have done
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: a bunch of things but ultimately didn't, and it would
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: instead be man that John Allen. He really got his
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: act together and that worked for me. That was enough.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: But I also I stuck to college. I did end
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: up graduating college. I would actually go back to the
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: University of Massachusetts at Amherst in western mass That's where
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: i'd meet my wife, Amanda. We started dating while I
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: was out there, and I graduated college, and then I
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: immediately went to a recruiter and I joined the Navy
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: and went off to seal training. The training to become
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: a seal, it's very, very long. Basically almost two years
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: of training. Fifteen percent of people will be successful and
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: actually become seals. But you got to remember that the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: initial pool of people that are in that statistic are
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: highly qualified. One of the questions was what's the hardest
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: part of seal training? For me personally, was a test
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: called pool comp where it's about the halfway point of
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: selection phase, which is called BUDS or basic Underwater demolition
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: seal training, and there's a twenty minute test where you
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: basically show that you can withstand an underwater emergency with
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: your scuba tanks on. So really what happens is you
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: go underwater and you stay there for twenty minutes while
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: instructors come down and turn your air off and rip
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: the hoses out of your mouth. But every time they're
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: like assaulting you, you got to go in the fetal
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: position and like wait for them to stop tying knots
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: in your hoses. You might see your mouth be over here,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: but you got to go through the same procedures, reach back,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: you do all these different things to regain your air source.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: So you end up becoming quite hypoxics. You're very low
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: on oxygen, and so of the twenty minute test, really
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: you're spending about half of that without air. Really, the
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: whole point of the test is do the procedures, but
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: show you can keep your composure. And I was just
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: horrible at this test, full panicmude, like no composure. I
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: was like the poster child of what not to do.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: But I ultimately on the day that I pass, I
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: just I kind of went in the pool with this
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: reckless abandon like, you know what, I'm just gonna go
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: in there and drown. That's my approach. And it made
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: it pretty simple, like I just don't care anymore. I'm
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: gonna just go in the pool and do these stupid
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: procedures and probably drown, and believe it or not, that
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: was enough for me. One of the more popular questions
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: was what was my scariest or most difficult experience as
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: a Navy seal? And so I have one that stands
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: out above all others, and it's actually what ultimately led
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: to me leaving the seal teams, and that was when
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: I got blown up in Afghanistan in twenty fourteen. We're
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: in this area in Afghanistan that was definitely a bad
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: guy town. We had gone in during the day and
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: started getting shot at. A couple of our partner for
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: us had gotten shot or dog got shot. It was
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: a bad start to the day and over the course
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: of about six hours we were kind of fighting rooftop
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: to rooftop with these people that just kept vanishing. And
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: by the end of the night we were getting ready
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: to leave this little city. We'd all kind of weed
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: as in our seal team, our platoon had broken up
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: into little groups of called fire teams, like pockets of
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: five six people out of the twenty five of us
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: that were there. And my fire team, not mine like
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I was in charge. I was just in this fire team.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: We were located on a section of the city kind
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: of closer to the exit of the city, and as
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: we're getting ready to leave, one of our drones spots
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: a group of people not Americans, not seals, that are
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: located near the exit, and our fire team was nearest them,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: and so we decided our fire team we would just
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: go over and scout out who these people were, because
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: we've been getting shot at all day and we don't
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: know where people are anymore, and we're worried that if
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: we don't inspect this group that they could be planning
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: an attack on us when we try to leave, because
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: we're getting ready to leave here, so we end up
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: walking down this alleyway and we're going down this like
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: t alleyway. When we get down the stem here and
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: reach the head of the tea if you will, we're
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: expecting to be able to look over this wall and
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: look out across this field and see this group of
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: men that are hiding. But when we got down to
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the end of the alleyway. They weren't across the field
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: on that wall. They were on this wall, like a
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: foot away from us, on the immediate other side of
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the wall, and they hadn't heard us sneak up. And
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: they were, you know, enemy combatants, and they had grenades
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: with the pins already pulled out as a defensive mechanism
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: in case they were compromised. And in the craziest few
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: seconds of my life, grenades are coming over the wall.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: There's shooting happening on both sides. The grenade actually came
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: over and hit my shoulder and landed next to me
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: and detonated. And I remember kind of getting up and
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: looking around and it's just chaos. We're in this like
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: tight little alley way and there's just gunfire everywhere, and
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I was just expecting to either die from bleeding or
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: have one of the bad guys come from around the
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: wall and finish me off. I tried to stand, I
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: couldn't stand. Somebody came over and dragged me around down
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: that tee section. I'm down here now, and so he
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: told me to put my turn quits on that it's
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: a device that helps you stop bleeding and then he
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: went back down to help other people. I couldn't get
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: my tourniquits off of my kit, I couldn't put them
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: on to death, and I remember thinking about my wife
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: and I went deaf and blind, and I remember being like, huh,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: I'm going to die in Afghanistan. It was not so
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: much a matter of will I die so much as
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I'm currently dying. It's interesting your body, your brain is
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: acutely aware when something really bad is happening, and it's
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: more matter of fact than anything else. As I'm preparing
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: to die, I remember just wishing that my wife and
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: I had started a family before I deployed, because we
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: actually kind of pushed it off and said, let's get
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: through a deployment and then you know, when you come back,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: we can think about having kids. And so I just
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: was like, man, I wish I had started a family.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: And then I passed out, thinking that would be the end.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: But my medic was an all star. He ran over
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: and while I'm laying there was able to stop the bleed.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: My interpreter laid over me and protected me. Because we're
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: still in the middle of a gunfight. I was worthless.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: My teammates were able to call an air strikes and
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: call a medical support, and we were able to high
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: tail our way out of there and I was saved,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: thanks entirely to my team. The most popular question is
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: how did I become inspired to go from all that
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to telling scary stories on the internet. It's been a
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: bit of a journey. I got medically retired in twenty
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: seventeen and I co founded and was the CEO of
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: a charity called Elite Meat, which is this organization that
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: helps Navy Seals and other elite special operators get jobs
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: in the private sector. It was built in large part
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: to help me get a job. Ironically, my job became
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: running a service that helps people get jobs. But I
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: did that for a few years. I'm still on the
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: board of Elite Meet. I also co founded a kind
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: of the opposite of Elite Meet. It's called Operators Association,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: and it helps aspiring special operators. It's like a mentorship
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: platform for them. It's on Patreon and we help them
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: become special operators. So kind of hitting on both ends
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: of the spectrum. And I'm still a partner over there.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: And so while I was building those two companies, I
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: saw a need to really leverage social media to get
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: the word out about your companies and what you're doing.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: That's what everybody does. And so my go to was
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: sharing my experience as a Navy Seal and talking about
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: my Navy seal experience and drawing people onto my pages
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: that way and then kind of funneling them to my
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: other business ventures that are both military related. But it
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: was really difficult because the topics I was talking about,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: you know, it draws a lot of negativity from the
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: active duty community that are in the seal teams. They
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily like it when people like me are talking,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: you know, about being a Navy Seal and all the
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: things I've done, because it comes off as very self
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: centered and very like, look at me, Look how great
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: I am. And I'm not acting like I wasn't doing
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: that in my votes, but it's a bad look, and
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I started getting a lot of negativity from some people
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: in the community. You know, I was, I was mad
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: about it, and I felt betrayed. But ultimately, you know,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I made my own decisions, you know, I chose to
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: do what I was doing and decided that all I
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: can do is maybe try to change my content style
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: and focus on something else. I also just felt like
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: I was running out of stories to tell, and so
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: for a lot of reasons, I just I didn't want
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: to be doing what I was doing, which was a
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: lot of Navy seal centered content. And on a whim,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: I posted a story on TikTok about the Dyatlov Pass incident.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: These Russian hikers go off into the wilderness get lost,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: and everybody speculates that like some monster kill them or something.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: I'm interested in this. I've always been interested in spooky,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: you know, mysterious stuff. I find myself researching that on
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: my own. So I'm just interested in this, and so,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: like out of left field, I'm doing like Navy seal content,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Navy sell content, Navy soil content, dyat Lave Pass Russian
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: hikers go missing in the mountains in the nineteen fifties.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: But it went viral on TikTok so and so I
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: was like, that's great, I'll do another one. And I
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: started posting some stories, more and more stories about like
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: scary stuff and mysterious unsolved mysteries, and it really took off.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: I think in part because I'm really really passionate about
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: telling stories one but specifically I'm really interested in strange,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: dark and mysterious content because I had either a really
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: intense sleep paralysis story or a paranormal one, or maybe
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: some combination. But you can check it out. It's one
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: of my more popular videos on my YouTube channel. It's
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: just what I saw in my room still haunts me.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: My TikTok really blew up. It's at six point six
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: million followers now, which is just mind blowing to me.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: And I've transitioned over to YouTube so that i can
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: make this a career. I can actually go full time
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: on YouTube and that's what I've been doing now for
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: the past two months. A lot of people ask what
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: is it like to be a YouTuber. It's unbelievable how
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: much time goes into this. I love doing it, so
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: this is not me complaining, it's the opposite. But all
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: I think about is YouTube. That is all I think about.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: I wake up, I'm on YouTube, I'm watching YouTube. I'm
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: thinking about YouTube. I'm watching tutorials on how to be
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: a better speaker, how to be a better YouTuber, and
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: then I'm pouring into documents that I've been saving and
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: articles I'm supposed to read. And every day I'm probably
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: spending probably I don't know, five hours of research for
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: that day's video. Even if I already know it, I'll
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: spend five hours just researching it and internalizing the story.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: I spend about an hour to maybe even an hour
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: and a half actually filming it. I do a single
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: take on my iPhone. I film everything on my iPhone.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I don't have a script. Now, let me be clear here.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I do write a script, but the best way to
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: tell a story, in my opinion, is to be the story,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: be in the story, and you can't do that if
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: you're reciting a script. And so I like internalize the story.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: That's why it takes me so many hours to really
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: get ready for story. I need to really feel like
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: I'm in it, and so the script serves as more
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: like a guide. But I'll look at a script, I'll
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: think about it, and then I'll tell the story. So
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I would say for any video, it takes about six
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: to seven hours just from okay, I have the idea,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: research it, internalize it, shoot it, and then I spend
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: another two hours at night doing the rough cut edit,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: not even the full edit. I kick it to my
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: amazing editor. Shout out to Wes Jay Adams, He's my guy.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Shout out to you, Wes. He takes the rough cut
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: and he puts in the imagery and he makes it
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: much sexier, and then we upload it the next day.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: And since I'm posting five days a week, we have
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: to be on a schedule where we're always a couple
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: posts ahead, so pretty much there is no off time,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: with the exception of maybe Saturday. But it's a really
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in such a privileged position. I
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: love doing this. I'm proud of what I'm doing, and
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: it's just so much fun to do something that I
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: so fundamentally enjoy doing. So a couple fun facts about me.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I use little tech decks a little hand skateboards. I
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: have like little ramps and stuff. I literally sit here
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: and like flip around with my tech deck the whole
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: time to like jog my creative mind. Also on the
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: notion of little skateboards. I was world ranked in the
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: game Skate. It's a video game on PlayStation three, Skate
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: one and Skate two. I was literally in the top thirty.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: It's a game where you would like do a trick
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: and then somebody else tries to match a trick. If
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: they can't match it, they get a letter until I
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: spell out skat and then they lose. I was playing
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: this all the time when I was in college, and
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know I was so good at it
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: and beating everybody, and I started getting all these notifications
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: from people being like.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: Dude, you're not even that good, Like my brother played
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: you last night. You weren't even that good man. I
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: don't know how you're like well ranked. And I went
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: to the leaderboard and there I was. So when I
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: do have some spare time, I do like gaming.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: I mostly just play offline, you know, I'm kind of
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: I'm thirty one, not like big into online gaming, didn't
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: really grow up with it. But I'll play like sports
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: games like I love MLB the show, huge baseball fan,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: but like I don't really play the game. I just
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: like edit the rosters and perfect everything about the rosters
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: to where like, you know, make sure their cleats are
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the right color and that their numbers are right and
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: their stats are right. Like I it's almost like I'm
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: taking a sports game and turning it into a life simulation.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Like I tell myself, I'm gonna edit these rosters and
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: make them perfect and then I'm gonna play that game,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: and then I never get the playing it. I just
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: edit the rosters and then don't play the game. I
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: don't know if this was even an interesting episode or not,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: but I'm more than happy to do more of these
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: or maybe answer more specific questions. But I think I
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: touched on the big ones. I do want to say
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: that I am just so thankful that I even have
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: this opportunity to have people that actually want to see
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: my videos. It's an incredible thing. I feel so lucky.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: I really genuinely wish I could get to know every
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: single one of you guys, guys and gals, because this
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: is just is a dream come true for me and
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: my family, and I just can't thank you enough. So
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: if you enjoyed today's video and you haven't done this already,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: please push the like button into the Grand Canyon, and
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: also subscribe to this channel and turn on all notifications.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: You don't miss any of my weekly uploads. If you
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: want to get in touch with me, you can direct
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: message me on Instagram or on Twitter, same username for
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: both platforms, it's John Balin four one six. Also, I
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: have a ton of content on TikTok my username over
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: there is mister Balin and if you have a story submission,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: please submit it to our subreddit. It's just called mister Ballin.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: It's linked low. I read that every day. If I
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: intentionally use your story, I will credit you. So whether
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: I see you on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Reddit, here, on
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: YouTube or some combination, I'm just incredibly thankful And until
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: next time, guys, that's gonna do it. So yea, all right,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: So I wanted to bring you into my dojo where
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: create all of my content. It's called the Mustard Room.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: It's pretty high speed, so don't be intimidated. This's my setup.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: It's nice and neat. This is where all the magic
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: happens right here. Here's my my ring light. There's my
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: little crappy tripod, got my I use tech Tex when
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to become more creative. Yes, this is this
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: is This is my setup right here