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One Of Britain’s Most Celebrated Explorers & Adventure Authors… Levison Wood

#188 of ‘The Curious Worldview Podcast’ with Levison Wood.

Levison Wood is an author, journalist, tv star, photographer, film producer, script writer, fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and as well to top it all off… former Officer in the British Army’s Parachute Regiment.

If you’ve never heard of Levison Wood, he’s written books that have taken us all across the world. He was propelled into fame with his debut 'Walking The Nile' back in 2015 which serendipitously parlayed into a documentary, and then the momentum took and he’s never looked back. 

Lev is for me the archetypal guest that I look for with this podcast. That delicate combination of writer and adventurer. The discipline to take a big risk, and then return with clean prose. 

I’d group this interview right alongside my high watermark for the show which was #169 with Jon Lee Anderson, #66 with Tim Butcher way back and any of the Tim Marshall appearances as well. 

#188 of ‘The Curious Worldview Podcast’ with Levison Wood.

Youtube - https://youtu.be/jP2HR443Pb0

Levison Wood Website

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Here is a transcript of the opening exchange from the conversation…

Ryan
How was it doing Jocko's podcast?

Levison
Jocko was awesome. Actually, I was introduced to Jocko through a mutual friend and obviously I've listened to his, a lot of his work. And I think when you speak to somebody with such an amazing level of experience, not just in his very distinguished military career, but in the way he's built his own media empire, you know, it's hard not to be slightly in awe at that sort of guy. But no, it was great. I think we spoke for two, three hours. I mean, it was, was, was a big one. But, you know, he, he's a guy that really does his research and he'd read my, my book back to back and came up with some pretty, insightful questions. So yeah.

Ryan
Yeah. I love his interview style because he takes it very linearly. So you pretty much just got a nice dump of your entire career and Is there a camaraderie between the Paras and the Seals? 

Levison
I think there's a camaraderie with all military guys that are operating at that elite level. think there's a mutual respect and whilst there's a bit of banter or a bit of healthy sort of, know, mickey-taking. Yeah, absolutely. know, we've, know, the special forces, the Paras, the Marines. All, you know, all sort of operating in a similar sphere and, and, know, did similar work in Afghanistan and Iraq. So we had a lot to talk about. Yeah.

Ryan
How about his mate who does the Matar-Made podcast coming out with such outrageous comments? How does he get in bed with the guys?

Levison
I have no idea. mean, he, seems to some very interesting, people in his network. Yeah. So you were there to promote the art of exploration. Yeah. This was, must've been a few years ago. Now it's probably like four years ago, five years ago. Yeah.

Ryan
Did you notice a tangible needle movement from doing a show with that audience and especially US audience?

Levison
Hard to tell because it was sort of mid COVID or was just before COVID actually. I think it sort of came out 2020 or something like that. it suddenly, you know, the world went into tailspin and so any tangible effect was probably mitigated by everyone getting slightly distracted by that stuff but obviously, you know, it's great to, get exposure in the U S. I mean, some of my shows have aired in America. A lot of my books have been published in America, but it's such a big market out there. It's easy to get sort of lost in the, in the fray. So, you know, having someone like Jocko talk about it to his huge audience was, was great.

Ryan
The Brits have yourself, Colin Thurborne, Paul Theroux, bag grills, men, men, many others. Is there a market for this type of exploration? Story writing armchair journalism, sorry armchair travel, know, beautiful documentaries that take you to a part of the world you've never seen. Is there a market for that in America? Like who's the Levison equivalent in the US?

Levison
I mean, there's a lot of adventure television in the US obviously Bear Grylls sort of monopolize the global market on that front. He's my neighbor. He's just over there as well. So we've got a sort of, you know friendship and we see each other occasionally. But it's quite different, know, it's very much about the entertainment sphere in the US. so there are obviously incredibly talented people that write really well. There's some great explorers, you know, I'm a member of the Explorers Club in New York. So whenever I go out there, you know, you meet incredible people doing amazing things. Obviously, there's a lot more cash over in the States. So they get to do much bigger expeditions.

The Explorers Club is a great example. You go there and you've got astronauts, you've got the deep sea guys, you've got James Cameron who sort of, you know, funds it all. So it's just, it's a very different level. But in terms of the sort of the space in which I operate, mean, I never really went into this thinking I'm going to get into that segment or that into that particular pigeonhole or niche. I sort of set out wanting to write books and I've always loved travel. And so the TV side of things was.

somewhat unexpected. And yeah, I wasn't quite prepared to sort of find myself on this journey and figure out, I had to sort of figure it out where to sort of slot myself. Yeah.

Ryan
I mean, speaking of the unexpected, you open up the art of exploration with a dedication to luck and chance. In other words, you're impromptu interview with the paras not dying in the car crash, taking off as a TV star. What's the role that this type of serendipity has played in your life?

Levison
Well, you know, it's kind of fun in hindsight to go back and piece it all together. And that's, I think that's the art of storytelling is when you see these synchronicities and the causation between all of these events, you can be like, of course that happened that way. At the time, it's sometimes more difficult, but what I've kind of learned to do and almost trained myself to do is know that in every situation, good or bad…

……. #188 of ‘The Curious Worldview Podcast’ with Levison Wood.