Ant Williams

Ant Williams

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Ant Williams is no ordinary speaker. He’s a world-record freediver who has held his breath for over 8 minutes, dived to 100m on a single breath, and swum 182 metres under solid ice in an unforgiving Arctic landscape.

He doesn’t just talk about risk-taking and mental toughness, he’s lived it.

But here’s what makes Ant different: he wasn’t always a risk-taker.

A former Sport Psychologist, he spent years coaching elite athletes – MotoGP riders, big wave surfers, rock climbers – only to feel like a fraud. Everything he was teaching came from a textbook, not from actual experience.

So, he decided to take up a dangerous sport and discover whether risk-taking could be learned – and what benefit his mental toughness techniques would offer.

Recently featured in an immersive film with Apple (2025), Ant’s keynotes combine gripping storytelling, powerful techniques from applied psychology, and interactive experiences to help audiences perform at their peak when it matters most.

Keynote Topics

Fearless under Pressure(60mins)

Ant holds world records for the deepest and longest swims under ice. A sport psychologist turned extreme athlete he combines mental toughness with relentless innovation to excel on the world stage. In this keynote, Ant demystifies risk-taking, breaking it down into actionable strategies anyone can apply.

Using insights from sport psychology, and his own extreme feats, he helps leaders and teams overcome fear, embrace uncertainty, and develop a mindset that thrives in times of change or challenge.

This high-impact session blends storytelling with jaw-dropping imagery from Ant’s world record attempts in ice diving.

Ant takes audiences behind the scenes of his world record-breaking Ice Dive – an audacious 182m swim under ice in Iceland for an Apple Vision Pro film.

He reveals what it takes to prepare for the extreme, the role of trust in high-stakes situations, and the mental strategies that helped him succeed when failure wasn’t an option.

Key takeaways:

  • Why taking positive, calculated risk is essential to achieving your dreams
  • How to rewire your brain for courage and composure
  • Techniques to unlock new levels of performance

Teamwork at the Edge(60mins)

What happens when a high-performing team, built for success, completely unravels under pressure?

Corporate teams may not face the Arctic cold, but they do face relentless change, high stakes, and the challenge of leading through uncertainty.

In 2019, Ant Williams set out to break an extreme sport world record — becoming the deepest man under ice yet within 24 hours of arriving in the Arctic Circle, his elite dive team fell apart.

Misalignment, poor communication, and a lack of trust turned a world-class operation into chaos.

In this dynamic and interactive keynote, Ant takes leaders inside this high-pressure mission to uncover the real reasons teams succeed or fail.

Through vivid storytelling and an immersive problem-solving challenge, attendees will step into the shoes of his dive team, identifying critical decisions that could have turned the team around before disaster struck.

Key takeaways:

  • Matching your leadership to the situation and the person
  • The cost of avoiding tough conversations
  • Addressing the dysfunctions that erode team performance

Testimonials

Your presentation at Macquarie yesterday was awesome I was absolutely enraptured as were my colleagues. You were able to bring us all on a journey with you, we felt your highs, lows, solitude and terror; it was amazing the way you did this. I found myself anxious before we did the holding the breath challenge and relieved once done. The way you seamlessly linked your rich experiences with our working environment and challenges was very clever, you left a very strong impression on me and on everyone else in the room.
Macquarie Bank

Ant made a massive impact on our top performing sales teams
Allianz

Simply Brilliant – what an inspiration I could not recommend him more highly.
GE Healthcare

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