MrBallen (John Allen) — Former Navy SEAL (Team 2) who was medically retired after a combat injury in Afghanistan, then became one of the internet's biggest storytellers via his 'strange, dark and mysterious' Mr. Ballen brand. He runs Ballen Studios with ~20-25 million followers across platforms and is a New York Times bestselling graphic-novel author.
The gist
MrBallen traces his arc from being the academic black sheep of a Pulitzer-winning family who flunked out of college and ended up in his mom's basement, to setting a goal of becoming a Navy SEAL and grinding through training. He recounts a near-death grenade injury in Afghanistan, the PTSD and alcoholism that followed, and being medically retired. He explains how posting SEAL content got him 'disowned' by the SEAL brotherhood, why he deleted it all, and how a 60-second Dyatlov Pass video posted from a water-park hotel room went viral and launched his career. The conversation digs into responsibility, fear, the 'unchecked box' framework for motivation, therapy and male vulnerability, and his principles for great storytelling.
Big reveals
- Admits that during the final SEAL confidence test he panicked and ran from CS gas, had to be tackled, and was publicly told by an instructor he never wanted to serve with him.
- Describes nearly bleeding to death from a grenade in a 2014 Afghanistan gunfight, unable to reach his tourniquets.
- Confesses he 'committed a cardinal sin' by publicly branding himself as a Navy SEAL for personal gain, violating the community's code.
- Got cut so deeply by SEAL friends messaging him 'you suck' that he deleted nearly all his SEAL content.
- Reveals his entire career launched from one 60-second Dyatlov Pass video filmed in a hotel room that hit 5 million views.
- Says after his live tour he no longer has any 'deeply internalized unchecked box' left and doesn't have a big goal anymore.
- Openly shares a deeply personal insecurity: he struggled for years to urinate in front of other people, and partly joined the Navy to face it.
- Reconnected with his estranged father only a few months before the interview after barely speaking for over a decade.
Things worth remembering
- His first college semester he got a 1.016 GPA, basically didn't attend class, and got caught in a campus riot.
- His father and one sister have won Pulitzer Prizes; another sister has a PhD and worked in a Harvard lab.
- Becoming a SEAL takes roughly two years from application to qualification, including BUD/S, the 6-month gauntlet where most candidates wash out.
- High-resume recruits (a Diamondbacks player, pro athletes) often wash out fastest; the survivors are usually a 'rag-tag group' driven by a chip on their shoulder.
- Cites the military maxim that an 80% solution now often beats a 100% solution tomorrow - speed over certainty.
- His viral break coincided exactly with the start of the pandemic when everyone flooded onto TikTok.
- At his peak he made five 25-minute videos a week solo, ~26 hours per video, became a 'raging alcoholic' and badly overweight.
- He references Will Smith's skydiving story to argue 'the best things in life are on the other side of fear.'
- Names 'The Headless Valley' (Nahanni Valley in Canada's Northwest Territories) as the story he's proudest of piecing together.
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Mr. Ballen: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories (graphic novel)
MrBallen (John Allen)
“you have this awesome graphic novel yes in the graphic novel it's a New York Times bestseller it's an anthology of Nine Stories it's beautiful” — MrBallen 02:01:08Find it on Amazon