Fear Said No. She Said Watch Me.

Lessons on Adventure, Illness, and Writing Your Way Forward

“You don’t want to get to the end of your life having regrets about missing the opportunity to see the world. So, pick a destination and start planning your trip now.”

Brenda E. Smith didn’t set out to climb Kilimanjaro, raft through hippo-infested waters, or become an author in her 70s—but she did all of it anyway.

Her journey from accountant to explorer to memoirist is the kind of story that makes you pause—and maybe rethink what’s possible. I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Brenda about fear, resilience, and the moment she realized sitting still wasn’t an option. Her answers are generous, honest, and deeply human.

Becoming Fearless Book Cover

Author Brenda E. Smith

Becoming Amazed Book Cover

Brenda is the author of two memoirs: Becoming Fearless and Becoming Amazed. You can learn more about her work here. Whether you're facing your own unknown or just need a reminder that it's never too late to say yes—this one’s worth your time.

Scroll on. You’ll be glad you did.

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The Moment of Yes

What finally pushed you to say yes to rafting through crocodile-infested waters and climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro? Did you realize then how much it would change you?

I’m not sure I ever said “Yes” to my boss, Richard Bangs, about going to Tanzania. He told me he’d planned for us to do the trip. I think he really wanted to expose me to the wonders that awaited beyond the boundaries of the United States. But I had no desire to leave this country. It terrified me to think of going to an unknown place whose language I couldn’t speak, whose food I couldn’t identify, whose water contained dangerous pathogens, not to mention unfamiliar plants, killer animals and potentially fatal diseases.

I didn’t have the courage to say “No” to Richard for fear of being branded a coward by him and my fellow river guides. Only a few of the guides with whom I worked ever earned the coveted invitation to crew with Sobek Expeditions. My mother became nearly hysterical when I told her I planned to go to Africa. She ordered me not to go. That set off a spark of rebellion within me that opened my mind to the possibility of taking this trip. Still, fear and dread held me captive even as Richard and I boarded that plane headed to Tanzania.

As we began the trip, I had no inkling of how it would change me. My brain focused solely on keeping me alive, never imagining I might emerge from the trip as a profoundly different person.

From Accountant to Explorer

You went from a safe, predictable life to venturing into the wild. Did you ever imagine those adventures would lead to writing books?

I fell in love with the world, and dreamed of traveling to every country on the planet. I also loved reading books. But writing about my adventures never appeared on my radar until my diagnosis of a one in a million neuromuscular degenerative progressive, incurable condition called Stiff Persons Syndrome (SPS) promptly curtailed my international explorations. As I lost mobility in my legs, I found myself sitting for most of the day. Only then did I realize that writing books could be a productive and satisfying undertaking. Once I started writing, I couldn’t stop!

Facing Fear

From extreme weather to personal loss, your journey hasn’t been easy. What was the most challenging moment, and how did it change you?

Receiving the diagnosis of SPS, then helplessly watching my world drastically shrink around me, by far, marks the most challenging moment of my life. But out on expeditions, I experienced several challenges that flooded my heart with fear. Being close enough to a wild lioness to see the gleam in her eyes, surprising a hooded cobra from a distance of 6 feet, threading an inflatable raft through a shallow pool filled with agitated hippos, and being medevacked from Pakistan to Germany after running an unexplainable high fever for two weeks are a few moments that come to mind. Surviving these challenges has made me grateful that I’ve experienced a full, active life.   

The Changing World of Travel

You’re intentional about respecting cultures and minimizing tourism’s footprint. Through your experiences, how have you seen travel and adventure evolve over time?

Forty-five years ago, when I started exploring the world, adventure travel appealed to a small group of people who didn’t mind roughing it on a limited budget with none of the enhanced equipment that has since enabled the industry to grow. We went into unexplored wildernesses, where we had no means of communication with the civilized world, often days from any sort of medical expertise. Adventure seekers today can helicopter into glamorous eco lodges, drink natural tasting water purified by high-tech filters, dine on gourmet foods, use cell phones to capture hundreds of photos they can blast in real time to friends around the world. The industry has changed vastly.

Writing Later in Life

What made you decide to share your story? What’s been the biggest challenge—and the biggest reward—of becoming an indie author?

Although I enjoyed telling friends and family about my journeys, I never wanted to commit the time it would take to document the stories into print. At nineteen, my best childhood friend died suddenly from an aggressive form of cancer, but her mom and I regularly kept in touch. Whenever I returned from a trip overseas, she’d invite me for tea and tales. At the end of each visit, she’d beg me to consider writing a book about my adventures. I always answered, “Maybe someday.” In early 2020, my friend’s mom lost her own battle with cancer. During my last visit with her in hospice, she made me promise to write a book to share my stories with the world. I couldn’t bear to deny her dying wish, so I promised I’d do it. I launched that first book in August 2023.

As a 70-year-old when I completed the book, I dreaded undertaking the ego-bruising quest to find an agent followed by the years it might take to interest a tradition publisher. Instead, I discovered I could work with a publishing services company to get my book into the world in about six months. I needed to front the cost of the services, but it would save me hundreds of valuable hours of my time. And I’d start earning a return on my investment much sooner. My biggest challenge has been marketing-getting my book in front of the right readers, but by employing various forms of promotions, my readership growth is on an upward curve. The biggest reward, for me, is hearing from readers that they enjoy my books. I want every reader that takes the time to write a review or leave a rating to know I consider their effort a cherished gift.

Adventure Meets Reflection

Your books blend thrilling experiences with deep introspection. Was it harder to write about the external journey or the personal one?

With a memoir, writing about the external journey involves recounting actual events and facts about the environments I traveled through. My memories, slides and photos, and fact checking with the other people on my journeys makes writing the external journey pretty straight forward. Writing about the personal inner journey is tough. I’m not one that easily shares my emotions or private details of my life. Growing up in a home with an alcoholic father and codependent mother, I learned to keep secrets. I also learned that trusting other people could be dangerous and hurtful.

My writing partners and trusted friends who read drafts of my writing often ask me to share more about my feelings and how the impact of obstacles I overcame affected me. Sharing that I’m afraid, confused, or sad requires me to be vulnerable in ways that are not always comfortable. But those genuine moments of baring my soul are what I think my readers most relate to.

Stepping Outside the Comfort Zone

For someone afraid to take their own leap into the unknown, what advice would you give?

Just do it! Honestly, the rewards of exploring other parts of our world far exceed the risks, especially if you travel with any of the multitude of experienced guides or tour operators leading trips all over the planet these days. I had so much fun and learned so much from my travels that I found a job that assigned me to live in a few foreign countries for eight years. There’s nothing so enlightening as seeing your own country through the eyes of people from different cultures. You don’t want to get to the end of your life having regrets about missing the opportunity to see the world. So, pick a destination and start planning your trip now!

Lessons from the Wild

After decades of exploration, what’s the single greatest lesson you’ve learned—about the world and yourself?

Fifty years ago, my boss told me, “We save what we love and we love what we know.” His wisdom convinced me to give up a job in the business world, which over a lifetime could have made me wealthy. I left that job behind to begin a quest for a different type of wealth: knowledge of the world in its entirety. I’ve never regretted that decision.

I’ve learned how fragile our planet is, and that the most dangerous living creatures on Earth are human beings. Human greed upsets nature’s delicate balance, threatening to destroy our world at an alarming pace. Many of the wilderness areas I traveled through no longer exist. In their place, governments have constructed vast infrastructure projects needed to support the expanding populations in cities around the world that have doubled or tripled in size in just the last 45 years. Mega hydro-electric dam projects have drowned millions of acres of wilderness, displacing people and wildlife. Poachers and prolonged droughts resulting from climate change have decimated hundreds of species nearly to the brink of extinction. People need to know and love our entire planet for us to have any chance to save it.

What’s Next?

More adventures? More books? How do you see your writing evolving?

Definitely more books. I’m about to embark on what may be the grandest adventure of my life, a new clinical trial which has the potential to improve if not cure SPS! I’ve written 160 pages about how living with this condition changed my life. I’d gotten to a point where I paused writing, unsure how to end the story. Karma arrived just in time to once again change the course of my life, as well as to provide a hopeful ending for my book.

Also recently, three other first-time memoir authors I befriended through our self-publishing community and I, all in our 70s, agreed to collaborate on a book to inspire people who have dreamed of writing their own stories that it’s never too late. We explain the steps involved in writing a memoir using examples from each of our author journeys to show there are many approaches a writer can employ to document their own unique story.

Finally, back to grand outdoor adventures. I have outlined a book about a journey down a tributary of the Amazon River through the rain forested lowlands of Bolivia with three friends. Another story I hope to write is about a seven-day canoe trip, a female friend and I took through the Florida everglades. That story is full of surprises, twists and turns. If I live long enough to finish those four books, I may just try my hand at fiction.

Bonus Question:

Looking back—on life, adventure, and publishing—what advice would you give your younger self?

I honestly have to say that if I could lead my life over, there’s not much I would change, including living with SPS. In my 20s, I had an intuition that I should try to get out and explore the wildest parts of the planet while I had youthful energy and insatiable curiosity. I’d put off travel to Europe and more developed countries until later. I did that with gusto, including living overseas in three countries and traveling in forty countries. Only now, in my later years, do I feel I confident to write about the world, and my place in it, with wisdom and understanding. I embrace the idea that there is a season for everything in my constantly changing life and my time spent on rivers taught me the easiest path through life is to go with the flow.

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Brenda’s story is a reminder that the unknown isn’t something to fear—it’s where the good stuff lives. If her words lit a spark, go check out her books Becoming Fearless and Becoming Amazed, and learn more about her work here . The next chapter of your own story might just start with a single yes.

Until next time, I’ll see you in the bookstores.

Monica