Life’s Tough, Explorers Are TOUGHER!
“Exploring is an innate part of being human.” Richard Wiese, spends 30 minutes every week with some of the world’s most compelling adventurers, explorers, and socio-environmental advocates, listening to their distinct adventures, unique discoveries, projects & goals, while discovering their multitude of challenges, surprises, triumphs and set-backs they encounter along the way. Join Richard as he pulls back the curtain on what it’s like to travel around the world and beyond; explore some of the most exotic and often dangerous places; and uncover what makes people, places and our planet so special.
Life’s Tough, Explorers Are TOUGHER!
Karim Iliya: How Storytelling Connects Nature, Space, and Humanity
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In this episode of Life's Tough, Explorers are Tougher, host Richard Wiese sits down with photographer and filmmaker Karim Iliya to explore a life shaped by constant movement, curiosity, and deep observation. Having grown up across multiple continents, Karim reflects on how living between cultures taught him adaptability, empathy, and an appreciation for the unseen forces that shape human opportunity. His work focuses on revealing hidden worlds—from overlooked animals like gulls and pigeons to the lives of people dedicated to specialized crafts.
Karim also shares his extraordinary experience being selected as one of eight artists for the DearMoon Project, a planned civilian mission around the moon. He describes preparing for spaceflight, visiting SpaceX facilities, and immersing himself in the engineering-driven culture of space exploration—before the project was unexpectedly canceled. Despite the setback, the experience permanently shifted his perspective on exploration, storytelling, and humanity’s place in the universe.
The episode closes with a thoughtful discussion on the future of filmmaking, attention spans, vertical video, and AI-generated imagery. Karim explains why storytelling still matters—and how pulling people into a moment through detail, emotion, and patience remains timeless, even as technology rapidly changes.
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This is Life's Tough, Explorers Are Tougher, with your host, Richard Weiss. Scratch the surface of an explorer and you'll find an adventure and a great story. This show is about their tales.
This podcast is a proud supporter of the Explorers Club and the EC50 Initiative. 50 people changing the world that the world needs to know about. For more information, go to explorers.org.