Eva zu Beck, THE WILDER WAY: A Memoir of Adventure, Freedom, and an Uncharted Life
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[0:27]Eva Zubeck is the author of The Wilder Way,
[0:30]a memoir of adventure, freedom, and an uncharted life.
[0:34]Eva Zubeck has produced films and presented content
[0:36]for global platforms, including the BBC,
[0:40]Deutsche Well, Euro News, and National Geographic,
[0:42]where she currently hosts super-skilled,
[0:45]a show exploring human potential
[0:46]and remote locations worldwide.
[0:49]Her work has garnered partnerships with industry leaders,
[0:52]like GoPro, DJI, the North Face, and Toyota.
[0:55]Originally from Poland and educated at Oxford University,
[0:58]even now lives in nomadic life,
[1:00]continuing to push boundaries and inspire others
[1:03]to live more wildly and freely.
[1:05]The Wilder Way is her debut memoir.
[1:07]Enjoy.
[1:08]Welcome, Eva.
[1:09]Thank you so much for coming on totally book
[1:11]to discuss The Wilder Way,
[1:13]and then more of adventure, freedom, and an uncharted life.
[1:17]Congrats, so happy to be there.
[1:19]Wow, this was such an adventure.
[1:21]Your life has been such an adventure.
[1:23]You took me to places I've never been.
[1:26]I mean, seen in Pakistan when they had all the influencers
[1:30]gather, like, I couldn't believe it.
[1:32]I was like, I can't believe I'm like,
[1:33]even in this moment right now, and that you were there,
[1:36]and we got to go with you.
[1:37]Crazy.
[1:38]You're whole.
[1:39]I love that you bring up that scene,
[1:41]because even for me, that was totally surreal, so.
[1:43]Right?
[1:45]Okay, so let's back up a minute.
[1:47]Why don't you tell everybody what the book is really about
[1:50]and how you ended up going, changing your life
[1:53]in such a dramatic way?
[1:55]Yeah, The Wilder Way is, you know,
[1:57]at the core, it's an adventure memoir.
[2:00]So it tells the tale of my really wild travels
[2:03]over the last 10 years, some crazy expeditions I've done.
[2:06]You know, incredible places, just Pakistan, Mongolia, Yemen,
[2:10]that I've spent considerable time in.
[2:12]But I think beyond being an adventure memoir,
[2:15]it's also just a book about a woman, you know,
[2:18]going out into the world to try and find herself,
[2:21]and ultimately realizing that, you know,
[2:25]it's not about finding yourself, right?
[2:27]It's about the search and it's about freedom
[2:29]and it's about living in authentic life.
[2:31]So I feel like that's what the book is really about.
[2:34]It's about freedom.
[2:36]It's about, you know, dreaming big, following your heart
[2:40]and living a life that feels aligned
[2:43]with how you want to live, with your soul's calling.
[2:46]Oh, I love that.
[2:47]Oh my gosh, that's so nice.
[2:50]You take us through some very personal,
[2:52]I mean, it is a memoir after all,
[2:53]but some really personal stuff.
[2:55]I was particularly moved by all of your descriptions
[2:59]of self-harm, which you write about really eloquently
[3:02]in the book.
[3:03]Can I just read this little passage?
[3:04]Do you mind?
[3:05]Oh, you said, this is, you know,
[3:09]talking about your family of origin.
[3:11]You said, by the time I was 16,
[3:12]I was regularly self-harming, carving out lines
[3:15]across my wrists with whatever was the easiest tool to grab.
[3:18]Kitchen knives, razor blades, paper scissors.
[3:21]I watched the cuts grow wider and bigger
[3:23]with a sense of satisfaction.
[3:25]It was the one thing I could control in my life.
[3:28]All my self-harming was a cry for help,
[3:30]but my mom had no idea how to handle something like that
[3:32]and swung between debating whether to send me
[3:34]to live with my dad in Asia
[3:36]and wanting to sweep everything under the carpet.
[3:39]Tell me a little bit about the role of self-harm
[3:41]in your life and even writing about it
[3:43]and sharing it with the rest of us.
[3:46]Yeah, it's one of those things
[3:47]that are very difficult to write about.
[3:49]You know, I'm a YouTuber, I'm a content creator,
[3:52]so I've never talked about any of these things
[3:54]really on social media.
[3:56]Maybe once I mentioned that in passing,
[3:58]but I feel like the book gave me a platform
[4:01]to really be able to talk about some
[4:03]of these more difficult complex issues in a bit more detail.
[4:06]And I suppose, you know, there is an implicit contract
[4:10]between the reader and the writer
[4:12]where the writer is able to share more, right?
[4:15]Things that are challenging, things that are bittersweet
[4:18]or maybe sometimes just bitter
[4:20]and that the reader will kind of understand it
[4:23]and not judge us, at least that's the hope
[4:25]that we have, right, as we have, please.
[4:27]So I feel like, you know, writing that was difficult,
[4:30]but I have already seen such a great response
[4:33]even to these more challenging moments, you know,
[4:36]where people just come up to me and say that,
[4:38]you know, okay, they feel seen.
[4:40]They feel like, okay, they've been through something similar
[4:42]and knowing that someone else out there
[4:46]has experienced it to make them feel a little bit less alone.
[4:49]So I feel like as challenging and difficult and comfortable
[4:53]as these moments can be to share,
[4:55]I really feel like there's so much value there.
[4:57]I agree.
[4:58]I'm sure this will be so helpful for so many people.
[5:01]Do you feel like this is a coping mechanism
[5:04]that you still go back to or what have you had?
[5:07]What do you turn to now when you are feeling
[5:09]like the world's out of control?
[5:12]Yeah, no, I feel like, you know, my coping mechanisms
[5:14]have definitely become more, like less harmful,
[5:17]less destructive and more sort of, yeah,
[5:22]more constructive, you know, young people,
[5:25]like as a young person for me personally,
[5:28]I just found it difficult to deal with the world.
[5:31]I felt like I had no agency in the world that I lived in.
[5:34]You know, I was living in a house with my mom
[5:37]with her husband, a person that I really hated
[5:40]and that I think did not love me in return either.
[5:43]So there wasn't that much kind of love there.
[5:45]There wasn't much understanding there.
[5:47]And at that age, I wasn't able to move out.
[5:50]I had to kind of finish my studies
[5:53]and kind of take time for me to become dependent.
[5:56]So I felt trapped and I felt like that,
[5:59]that became a kind of a go-to.
[6:02]And it felt like there was no other way for me
[6:04]to kind of express my anger and rage and sadness
[6:08]and all these big emotions that I was having.
[6:11]But I feel like, you know, as an adult,
[6:13]having seen so much of the world,
[6:14]having experienced the beauty of the world firsthand,
[6:17]having become independent, knowing that I do have agency.
[6:22]I've, along the way, found, you know,
[6:26]much better tools to kind of deal with some of my,
[6:29]yeah, I mean, frustrations with the world.
[6:30]And I feel like now, you know,
[6:33]I've taken up long distance running like ultra marathon running,
[6:36]which I feel is also maybe a form of self-harm.
[6:39]You know, you're out there ready for 50 or 100 miles.
[6:44]Like, that can be good for you,
[6:46]but it feels, but it feels fun.
[6:48]So, you know, there's running, there's,
[6:51]there's an age that would not feel fun to me.
[6:53]Let me just say that.
[6:54]Hey, you can barely get myself around the 10th grade these days,
[6:57]but that's okay.
[6:58]Anyway, I feel like maybe these like masochistic tendencies
[7:01]are not expressing themselves in the very different way.
[7:04]But yeah, you know, kind of getting out there,
[7:07]being outdoors, being connected to nature,
[7:10]spending time with my animals.
[7:12]That is now how I find solace and peace.
[7:16]So that's changed a lot, definitely for the better.
[7:19]Well, you go through this whole period in your journey
[7:22]where you disconnect from sort of traditional life,
[7:26]shall we say, like, you throw out the razor
[7:29]and you live outside and you're just like,
[7:31]I'm gonna just go, not going off the grid.
[7:35]That sounds like too cliche or whatever,
[7:36]but you were exploring deserts and just like,
[7:39]all these places, doing it your way.
[7:42]I mean, if you think about how to get control
[7:46]over your environment, this is like the most radical way
[7:49]you could possibly do that, right?
[7:50]You're turning literally the world on its head
[7:53]by where you're choosing to live
[7:55]and how you're choosing to interact with it.
[7:57]It's like incredibly empowering.
[7:59]And then you decided to like video it
[8:01]and all of that as well.
[8:02]How do you feel about all that?
[8:03]This pre burnout, which comes later in the book,
[8:05]but the pre burnout, like, you know,
[8:07]just a wild abandoned moment that you get into.
[8:11]Talk about that.
[8:14]You know what?
[8:15]I think a lot of people kind of see it
[8:17]as some kind of rebellion, you know.
[8:19]I mean, I stopped wearing makeup five years ago.
[8:22]I'm very vocally anti sort of anti-aging procedures.
[8:28]I do talk a lot about all of that.
[8:30]You look like you're 12 though,
[8:32]so you can be anti-aging procedures
[8:34]for the more years, right?
[8:36]You're so hilarious.
[8:37]It's like having a baby be like,
[8:38]I don't need the text, but anyway.
[8:41]I do feel like there's something up with these cameras
[8:44]on our computers and on our smartphones
[8:46]that do make us look younger.
[8:47]I feel like the iPhone does come with like some sort
[8:52]of pre-editing software.
[8:54]Oh, I hope not.
[8:55]Oh, I hope not on a camera.
[8:56]I do feel like it's what I look like.
[9:00]But yeah, but you know, I've become so like questioning
[9:03]of the beauty norms and standards that we're so used to.
[9:08]I've become questioning of,
[9:09]I think a lot of how women are told to live.
[9:13]You know, how we're told to, you know,
[9:15]get married and have kids and how that's supposed
[9:17]to be our purpose in life.
[9:18]How we're told to behave in certain ways,
[9:21]speak in certain ways and absolutely look in specific ways.
[9:27]And in kind of, you know,
[9:29]my whole journey around kind of questioning
[9:31]all those standards has been very vocal
[9:33]and very expressive on social media.
[9:36]And also, of course, in the book,
[9:38]although I feel like in the book,
[9:39]I don't even, I feel like it's just the tip of the eyes,
[9:41]but there's so much more.
[9:43]But these decisions to like not shave and not wear makeup
[9:47]and not do all these things that women are expected to do,
[9:51]I feel like it has kind of labeled me as a kind of a rubble
[9:55]in a way, but I see it as the opposite of rebellion
[9:59]because I see it.
[10:00]see it as the most natural state that we can exist in.
[10:03]You know, we're not putting junk on our faces
[10:07]that then seeps into our bloodstream
[10:09]that we are living a little bit more in harmony
[10:11]with how nature intended for us to be.
[10:15]And so for me, it is absolutely empowering.
[10:18]It is absolutely very, very liberating,
[10:20]but not in like this rebellious way
[10:22]where I'm standing up against society
[10:24]and doing the opposite.
[10:26]But more in that way of like, hang on,
[10:29]this is how I'm supposed to be.
[10:30]All these things that I am have functions
[10:33]that relate to the natural world around me
[10:36]because we are part of the natural world.
[10:38]And so I feel like it's all just brought me closer
[10:41]to nature, to wild places.
[10:45]And that's kind of the journey now, I suppose.
[10:49]And what a beautiful journey to be on.
[10:51]Wow, I love that.
[10:53]You have also harnessed social media
[10:56]to magnify all of your activities.
[10:59]And I have to admit, maybe I shouldn't even admit,
[11:02]but I didn't really know much about you and your channel
[11:05]and Venge, I don't, my YouTube is like all my kids videos.
[11:10]Like it is all slime and like, I don't even know.
[11:13]How did you become, and I know you write about it in the book
[11:16]when you decided to sort of share your adventures
[11:18]and everything, but that's like a whole job
[11:20]in and of itself, right?
[11:21]Becoming your content creator
[11:22]and like having this essentially like a show on TV,
[11:25]but now it's YouTube, but that sounded stupid too.
[11:28]Anyway, talk about creating that
[11:30]and what it takes to be the type of content creator
[11:34]that you are.
[11:37]You know, people see kind of content creation
[11:41]as a very easy job, and I feel like maybe in some instances
[11:44]it can be, but it can also be a craft
[11:46]and an art, a way of kind of expressing yourself
[11:51]and bringing people to amazing places around the world.
[11:55]And so for me, it's always been a case of like,
[11:57]oh, I wanna create things that are beautiful,
[12:01]that have a voice and a style that's my own.
[12:04]I don't just wanna, you know, flood the world
[12:07]with content that is meaningless or forgettable.
[12:10]I wanna create things that hopefully people can relate to
[12:13]that help people see the world in slightly different ways.
[12:16]And I also really, really wanted to kind of show people
[12:20]that that women can do all these amazing adventures as well.
[12:25]Back when I started on YouTube 10 years ago,
[12:27]there were very few role models, female role models
[12:31]in the world of travel on YouTube.
[12:33]Maybe I can count on the fingers of one hand,
[12:36]the number of like female adventures
[12:39]that you could actually like tune into.
[12:42]So it became a bit of a personal mission for me
[12:45]to change that and to just become another kind of
[12:50]female adventurer that people could look at
[12:52]and be like, oh, there's a woman traveling alone.
[12:54]Cool, maybe I can do it too.
[12:57]And I feel like that has been kind of the mission
[12:58]to normalize solo female travel,
[13:00]to normalize women going out to wild places,
[13:04]looking rugged, looking adventurous,
[13:07]just doing their thing, you know.
[13:09]And kind of countering that narrative that it's too dangerous
[13:11]for women to travel alone or that, you know,
[13:14]the narrative that we see so often on kind of traditional
[13:19]travel media on television,
[13:21]where, yeah, you do sometimes get female hosts,
[13:23]but they're usually so very manicured
[13:26]that, you know, it doesn't kind of feel like
[13:28]that rugged style of event.
[13:29]It doesn't feel like real travel, you know.
[13:31]When we go out traveling, we get sweaty, we get dusty.
[13:35]We, you know, we get tired
[13:36]and I wanted to convey all those things.
[13:38]Just be a human that happens to be a woman
[13:40]doing cool adventures out in the world.
[13:44]That was kind of my big goal.
[13:46]And yeah, and I feel like that's it's kind of,
[13:49]it's kind of worked out, I suppose.
[13:51]The last 10 years.
[13:53]A lot of bloods and tears went into, you know,
[13:56]my social media presence and, but I feel like it's,
[14:00]yeah, it's just been such an incredible adventure
[14:02]and having traveled to, you know,
[14:03]90 plus countries, having met incredible human beings
[14:07]around the world.
[14:07]Having had my mind blown open
[14:11]with just the incredible ways in which people live
[14:15]and relate to each other from Afghanistan
[14:18]to Pakistan to Iran and Iraq, like just, yeah,
[14:23]incredible to be able to take people along
[14:25]on these adventures via social media.
[14:27]So for those of us or perhaps people listening
[14:31]who don't quite have the stomach
[14:35]for the type of adventures that they can't go all out.
[14:38]Maybe they're like shopping at REI today,
[14:40]wondering like, should I get a pair of hiking boots, you know?
[14:42]Like, yes, yes, absolutely.
[14:45]How do people, how can, how would you encourage,
[14:48]particularly women, you know,
[14:50]how do we scratch the itch of travel and get into it?
[14:54]If this is not something that is in our wheelhouse,
[14:56]necessarily this adventure travel the way that you do it?
[15:00]I feel like it's always about small steps.
[15:02]You know, when I started traveling solo for the first time,
[15:06]my second destination, the second place that I actually traveled
[15:09]to on my big kind of life changing journey,
[15:12]was Pakistan, right?
[15:14]And that's a pretty, that's a pretty adventurous choice,
[15:17]I would say, right?
[15:19]It's a place that, you know, I think we probably all have
[15:22]these images of Pakistan being quite dangerous,
[15:25]quite risky, maybe not a good spot for a solo female traveler.
[15:30]But when I went there for the first time,
[15:32]I, you know, I had my concerns,
[15:35]but as soon as I arrived,
[15:36]I was just met with such a beautiful welcome spirit.
[15:40]People would just stalk me on the street,
[15:42]see that I'm a foreigner and invite me to their house
[15:45]for a cup of tea to meet their family,
[15:48]to stay with them, people ask me if I was okay,
[15:50]if I needed anything, there's this incredible culture
[15:53]of hospitality out there in Pakistan.
[15:56]So you see, even in the places that sound like,
[16:00]they could be risky, they could be quite challenging.
[16:03]There are people out there who are just good
[16:06]and who want you to feel safe
[16:08]and who will invite you in wherever you're from.
[16:11]So I feel like there's good people ever go around the world.
[16:13]And the more we kind of choose to focus on that
[16:17]and look at the good things,
[16:19]the more I feel like good things will happen to us.
[16:22]So, you know, I'm not saying that everybody should travel
[16:24]to Pakistan as like their first international destination,
[16:27]perhaps that is a little much and a little too intense,
[16:31]but small steps, right?
[16:33]What sounds like a good place that you could go to
[16:34]for a weekend alone, you know?
[16:36]What doesn't sound too daunting.
[16:39]Start there.
[16:39]And then I always see kind of courage as like a muscle.
[16:44]So the more you practice courage,
[16:46]the more you put yourself in situations
[16:48]that require courage of you,
[16:50]the more you grow that muscle
[16:51]and the stronger that muscle becomes.
[16:54]And so just remember that every single trip that you take
[16:57]is a way to grow that muscle of courage.
[17:01]Remember that?
[17:02]And maybe just talk a little bit
[17:04]because at one point in the book,
[17:06]people, you got a lot of like negativity based on this Pakistan
[17:10]coverage that you were giving and people are not.
[17:12]People questioning your motives and trying to cancel you
[17:15]and you had to like rebound from that.
[17:17]How do you handle it when the world suddenly feels against you?
[17:22]How do you help people through that?
[17:25]I don't know if I have like a very good answer to this
[17:28]because, you know, things like online hate,
[17:31]that's something that you just always get
[17:33]as a content creator and it always stinks.
[17:35]Like I'm not gonna lie,
[17:36]it's always gonna sting a little bit.
[17:38]But I feel like there are ways to deal with it.
[17:40]I remember one of the very first kind of trolling campaigns
[17:44]that I experienced where, you know,
[17:46]seeing a lot of really awful comments and DMs
[17:49]about something I did or said or whatever.
[17:51]I mean, I remember talking to a friend about it
[17:54]who was a much more experienced YouTuber.
[17:57]And he said to me that, you know, right now
[17:59]you can choose to focus on all of these negative comments
[18:02]and let them drain your emotional energy
[18:06]and your emotional force away from you.
[18:09]Or you can choose to look away
[18:12]and continue to focus on the beautiful creative things
[18:16]that you're putting out into the world.
[18:18]But you can't do both.
[18:19]It's not in and out at the same time.
[18:22]You can only either take it in or put it out.
[18:24]And so, and I felt like that was such a beautiful metaphor
[18:27]of just a very conscious decision to say no,
[18:32]that's not the energy that I want to focus on.
[18:35]I want to focus on creating,
[18:37]because if you're focusing on taking in all the negative things
[18:40]you're not going to be able to focus
[18:41]on creative creative creative stuff, right?
[18:43]So it is always a conscious choice
[18:46]and it always takes a bit of work and a bit of saying,
[18:49]nope, I'm not going to look at these awful things
[18:52]that people are saying.
[18:53]And I'm going to focus on all the good stuff.
[18:56]I mean, at the end of the day, you know,
[18:58]it's absolutely impossible to please everyone
[19:00]and nobody should even try.
[19:02]It's fully to try.
[19:04]You know, I kind of also don't want to be vanilla ice cream,
[19:07]right? There's so many more interesting flavors.
[19:09]So what ice cream would you want to be?
[19:12]I feel like I am one of those like crazy,
[19:14]Ben and Jerry's flavors.
[19:15]You know, the ones that have like the marshmallows
[19:18]and the caramel and the fish food.
[19:20]Yeah, oh my God, fish food is my favorite.
[19:23]So I feel like I would be fish food.
[19:24]Okay.
[19:26]What would you be?
[19:27]I'm like on a mint chocolate chip kick
[19:29]with like a really good quality chip chocolate chips,
[19:33]you know, not chips, like slivers of chocolate.
[19:36]Yes, you know, I like that.
[19:37]Yeah, not for everyone, but refreshing.
[19:44]All right, well, thank you so much, Eva.
[19:46]Congratulations on your book.
[19:48]I'm so impressed with all of the ways that you have navigated
[19:53]the world spiritually, physically and all the rest.
[19:56]So congratulations.
[19:58]Thank you so much.
[19:59]Thanks.
[20:00]for a lovely chat.
[20:01]Thank you, you too.
[20:02]Okay, bye-bye.
[20:03]Bye.
[20:04]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zippy,
[20:07]formerly Momstone have time to read books.
[20:09]If you loved the show, tell a friend,
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[20:17]Thanks so much.
[20:18]Oh, and bye the books.