Having spent more than 30 years as a full-time sponsored extreme sports athlete, Will Gadd now teaches his two young daughters how to navigate life and mountains. In this humorous talk he tells us why he’s happy when his five-year old classifies a situation as “Bumps and bruises only” or “Death,” and outlines a few simple tools we can all use to navigate the risk inherent in life.

Will Gadd is one of the top outdoor adventure athletes in the world, an award-winning writer, filmmaker, and dad. 

He has ice-climbed, paraglided, kayaked and trekked in some of the most extreme corners of the planet. A National Geographic “Adventurer of the Year”, Will has climbed icebergs in Labrador and underground ice in Sweden, was the first person to climb a frozen Niagara Falls, and recently returned from climbing the last ice on top of Africa’s highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro. 

While best known for his accomplishments as an adventure athlete, Will’s is also passionate about sharing his ability to complete those adventures safely, and helping individuals see the world and themselves differently.

Will has appeared in, hosted or produced more than 100 global television projects, and is well-known for his Discovery Channel documentary series Fearless Planet, where he traveled alongside regional scientists to explore the geology of the earth.