It wasn’t supposed to happen. Not like this. The original plan was something casual — maybe an online interview, a few emails exchanged, then chop it up into a podcast. But what unfolded in Squamish, British Columbia, during the Arc'teryx festival was something else entirely: a raw, unscripted conversation in front of a live audience with one of the greatest climbers of our time, Will Gadd.
You probably know Will, even if you think you don’t. Red Bull athlete. Ice climbing legend. Paragliding risk-taker. The kind of guy who makes YouTube thumbnails look like CGI. But none of that was what stuck with me after sitting across from him for an hour. It was the stuff in between — the pauses, the self-deprecating jokes, the gut-level honesty about fear, failure, and what it really means to suck at something — and choose to do it anyway.
Here’s what I learned. And no, you don’t need to climb a frozen waterfall to relate.
About 15 minutes into the podcast, Will says something that sounds almost too obvious: “Sucking sucks.”
But then he elaborates. He talks about being the ninth-best in a group of eight when he first started climbing. About spending hours alone in his basement, replaying every mistake he made in competition, trying to figure out why he failed. About going back out there, again and again, not to be the best — but to suck a little less each time.
It’s not glamorous. It’s not Instagrammable. But it’s probably the most relatable thing I’ve heard from a high-performing athlete in years.
The takeaway? Improvement isn’t a staircase. It’s a crawl through mud, a long drive in silence, a refusal to quit when it still doesn’t make sense.
At one point, I asked Will what mental training means to him. His answer? It’s not about positivity or motivational quotes. It’s about sitting in a metaphorical bathroom stall before a climbing comp, headphones on, sweating through your shirt, and still choosing to walk out there and do the thing.
Mental training, he said, is built in that space — between the thought that says “you can’t” and the choice that says “do it anyway.” You can visualize, you can rehearse, but none of it matters until you’re standing on the edge of discomfort and stepping forward anyway.
This wasn’t theoretical for him. He talked about trauma, real and experienced — from losing friends in the mountains to CPR on the side of a hill. This isn’t about “powering through.” It’s about processing, absorbing, growing.
The way he put it? “The disorder part is optional.”
I had a mantra I repeated during competition season. “I will find comfort in discomfort.” Sounds noble, right? But in truth, I used it to gaslight myself into doing dives I was scared of. Deep dives. One breath. That kind of scared.
Will didn’t flinch when I told him this. In fact, he smiled. Not because he thought it was brave — but because he knew exactly what it felt like. He called it “training to suffer,” and explained that the real gains — in climbing, in diving, in life — only come when you lean into the discomfort rather than run from it.
That hit. Hard.
Will has been in the game for decades. And he’s seen what it costs. The bruises, the falls, the ones who don’t come back. He doesn’t romanticize it. He doesn’t wrap it in euphemism.
Instead, he talks about life insurance.
That’s not a metaphor.
He literally said he pays for life insurance so that if something happens to him in the mountains, his kids are okay. That level of honesty isn’t typical in extreme sports. It’s not often celebrated. But it should be. Because this — all of this — comes with real risk. And pretending otherwise doesn’t make you strong; it makes you naïve.
If you’ve been in any performance field — sports, art, business — you’ve probably looked at someone more successful and thought, “They must know something I don’t.”
But Will tears that illusion apart. There’s no hack. No life-changing app. No universal routine.
There’s just the work.
It’s trial and error. It’s brutal self-honesty. It’s asking, every single time: “What part of this do I suck at? What part can I do better?” And then doing the boring, uncomfortable, often lonely work of answering that question in real time.
This is true whether you’re pulling yourself up an ice wall or trying to hold your breath at 100 meters. The difference between a good athlete and a great one, he says, is conscientious practice. Doing the thing with intent. Purpose. Reflection. Repetition.
This one came near the end, after an hour of shared stories, nerdy training tips, and confessions about fear.
Will asked a simple question he uses when facing a tough decision in the mountains: “Do I want to do this — or do I just want to have done it?”
It’s such a quiet litmus test, but so useful. Because ego wants to have done it. Achievement wants the photo, the record, the story.
But love — the real kind — wants to be there, doing the thing, even if nobody’s watching.
Why am I writing this? Why does any of this matter?
Because this conversation — sweaty, unrehearsed, in front of a crowd of strangers in a mountain town — reminded me that we’re all trying to figure it out. That world-class athletes and weekend warriors alike deal with fear, with failure, with the nagging voice that says you’re not good enough.
And the only way forward isn’t to drown that voice out with noise, but to look it in the eye and say: “Okay. But I’m doing it anyway.”
That’s mental training. That’s courage. That’s the work.
And if nothing else, that’s what Will Gadd gave us that night.
