Diana Nyad
Diana Nyad
Diana Nyad /ˈnaɪˌæd/is an American author, journalist, motivational speaker, and long-distance swimmer. Nyad gained national attention in 1975 when she swam around Manhattanand in 1979 when she swam from North Bimini, The Bahamas, to Juno Beach, Florida). In 2013, on her fifth attempt and at age 64, she became the first person confirmed to swim from Cuba to Florida without the aid of a shark cage, swimming from Havana to Key West. Nyad was also once ranked thirteenth among US...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth22 August 1949
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
It's not too late, I can still live my dreams.
Write that novel. Start that business you've always wanted to. The ultimate high of life is the commitment to pursuing something.
For previous generations, swimming the English Channel was the feat to accomplish. And that's been done.
Endurance is not a young person's game. I thought I might even be better at 60 than I was at 30. You have a body that's almost as strong, but you have a much better mind.
All of us suffer difficulties in our lives. And if you say to yourself 'find a way,' you'll make it through.
There's so much boldness in living life this way, and we did it all, and no one can take it away from us.
I don't want to be the crazy woman who does it for years and years and years, and tries and fails and tries and fails and tries and fails, but I can swim from Cuba to Florida, and I will swim from Cuba to Florida.
I want to see all the countries in the world and learn all the languages. I want to have thousands of friends and I want all my friends to be different. I want to play six instruments. I want to be the best in the world at two things. I want to be a great athlete and I want to be a great surgeon. I need to practice very hard every day. I need to sleep as little as possible. I need to read at least one major book every week. And I need to remember that my seventy years are going to go by too quickly.
If you can just immerse yourself in your life, it doesn't matter what you do everyday. Just do it intensely. Be in it, so that when you go to sleep you're exhausted every night and you say, 'Whoa, I just couldn't have done any more with that day.'
From age eleven to age sixteen I lived a spartan life without the usual adolescent uncertainty. I wanted to be the best swimmer in the world, and there was nothing else.
Just getting in the pool for seven straight hours is unbearable to me.... It's grueling. There's nothing physically pleasurable about it. If you're doing a hard workout, you're throwing up in the gutter. At night you cling to your pillow and just hope that your body revives before you have to go back and do it again.
This is a lifelong dream of mine and I'm very very glad to be with you,
The mantra I used was 'find a way.'
I have an uncompromising relationship with my goals.