Shawn Ryan: There's A Battle For Your Soul, It's Happening Right Now

Sean Ryan, you’ve had several lives already: Navy SEAL, contractor, entrepreneur, and now one of the biggest interviewers in the world. What’s the short version of the road that got you here?

I enlisted at seventeen, went toward the SEAL pipeline, spent about five and a half years in, then got out and failed miserably at real estate. I’d read Trump’s book, figured I’d become an entrepreneur, and that failure pushed me into contracting: State Department work, then CIA work through Blackwater, SOT, and eventually directly for the agency.

What makes a Navy SEAL different from an ordinary military role? Is Britain’s SAS a fair comparison?

SEAL means sea, air, and land. It’s special operations: BUD/S, jump school, qualification training, time at a team before deployment. You train diving, jumping, demolitions, close-quarters work, sniping, and every environment. SAS or SBS is a fair comparison. Haiti in 2004 was my first exposure to real misery and disorder. Afghanistan came after Red Wings. In Iraq, we were teaching conventional units to plan, surveil, insert, and hunt the people attacking our guys.

That life cranks your drive way up, but there’s a dark side: adrenaline, drinking, fighting. Coming home, ordinary life felt flat. After contracting, I went to Colombia because I was bored and didn’t want people who’d never been there telling me about war. The rush was mapping networks, finding who mattered, putting myself in the middle of it. It was the most dangerous thing I’d done, and I didn’t value my own life much.

After I threw cash into a Medellín crowd, my doorman told me police had asked about me and might have surveillance outside. He knew details he couldn’t have invented. I cleared out, ran surveillance-detection routes, bought tickets in different directions, and left within twelve hours. I never returned.

You built this enormous platform after that life. Can political power compromise podcasting?

I can’t prove it, but I think it happens. Get photographed at the White House, on Air Force One, at dinners, and people see you as part of that team. Even if you meant nothing by it, you’ve put a ceiling on your independence. I turn those invitations down. A guest may talk for hours, but one sentence can be the mission—the line expected to get clipped and spread. I’m not saying everybody is an asset. I watch patterns.

I’ve got a great relationship with YouTube, and I’m not whining about rankings. But at roughly 150 to 200 million monthly views, not appearing in certain podcast areas feels odd. Intelligence work uses normal cover, so I wonder whether people inside platforms can act without the companies knowing. I wanted both sides during the election. Kamala Harris’s team came close, then pulled out. Trump came with no restrictions. I supported him winning, but I’m not happy with what I’m seeing now; it’s far from what I expected.

On Iran, I don’t see a good outcome for America, and I don’t know the real reason. Former military people I speak with feel we’re involved for somebody else’s interests; beyond that is speculation. Bigger picture, China is building capacity while we argue and wreck trust with allies through reversals, tariffs, and erratic policy. You can’t run a business with somebody who changes everything every four years.

I’d like to do fifty states in fifty days, go into the poorest places, and put it on camera. Why are we spending everywhere else while parts of our country look abandoned? Put senators, governors, and representatives in front of what’s happening in the states they claim to serve. We’re watching ourselves come apart in real time. I’m probably not involved in 2028 unless something genuinely different appears.

I do kill interviews. One COVID guest sounded convincing, but he kept sliding between claims about COVID-19 and SARS. That distinction mattered if millions might make medical choices from it, so I didn’t air it. I’ve ended interviews with supposed experts who couldn’t explain the basic organization they claimed expertise on, or alleged agency people hiding behind classification while reciting surface details.

Helping my best friend through opiate addiction meant I had to clean myself up too. He later died, but it gave me purpose and got me into therapy. Therapy bruised my ego, but you can work through a shocking amount with somebody who doesn’t take sides and asks good questions. I did ibogaine because I wanted to be present with my wife and son; after the first experience, quitting alcohol and sleep medication felt almost effortless.

I haven’t had alcohol in more than four years, and I don’t use sleeping pills or Adderall. But a second ibogaine experience, with five-MeO-DMT afterward, was horrific: total absence, fear, no God, no Christ, endless time. I came away believing psychedelics may offer benefits while opening people to something spiritually dangerous. Since then, I’ve had nightmares and things I regard as supernatural. Priests think it’s oppression, not possession. It’s been rough on my wife and kids too.

I’m agnostic but curious. I was raised Christian, became a new-atheist type for a while, then stopped pretending I could define everything. After enough interviews, it feels arrogant to say there can’t be something more.

That’s how the seed started for me too. Guests I never expected kept bringing up faith. I was raised Catholic, drifted, and now I’m back. People will think I’m crazy, but these experiences pulled me closer to Christ. I want a long Bible series, book by book, because I have access to people and questions I think I’m supposed to ask. Some advertisers have left, but if I believe this is a fight between good and evil, I can’t stop because a deal disappears.

A good life now is memories with my wife and kids. Money removes pressure, but it doesn’t purchase peace. I love business and I’m a workaholic, but I need smarter deals and more no’s. Your kid knows whether you’re really playing trains with them or your brain is somewhere else. Build while you can, but don’t let work eat your family. Love? It’s what you’d lay your life down for. For me, that’s my family.