Never Give Up | Find a Way

Diana NyadDiana Nyad’s empowering messages for making your life count for something take on a new meaning now that she has achieved her goal! She swam over 100 miles from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage (the first person to do it–ever). “Find a way” was her new mantra this time, which was her 4th attempt since turning 60. Her dream actually began when she was a child in Fort Lauderdale looking across at Cuba.

Her best friend, Bonnie Stoll said she would look toward Cuba and say, “I want to swim across.” She became a marathon swimmer and won many “races” including being one of the few women to swim around Manhattan Island in her 20’s. She made her first attempt from Cuba to Florida at 29 years old and quit before she reached the halfway point.

Then after not swimming for 31 years, various career moves and a failed marriage, she turned 60. In her 2011 TED Talk, she tells the story of her mother’s death at 82 and her regrets over a life not well-lived. She was propelled by these events to set an extreme goal, a goal that would take everything she could pull together to achieve.

You Are Never Too Old to Achieve Your Dream

Now that Diana is 64 she finally had everything she needed. She says at 29 her body was ready, but her mind was not. The glimpse of the fleeting time she had left after turning 60 gave her the urgency needed to go forward and make every moment count. We hear this from other people who think they don’t have long to live. They make promises to themselves like, “I’ll live every minute like it is my last.” For Diana, she faced her regrets with the notion that she didn’t want to waste another moment. The story of her heroic journey through 4 failed attempts and finally making her dream come true has created a powerful example for all of us.

She has shown us that age need not be an obstacle. It can be an advantage. Failed attempts can be viewed as failures or we can choose to learn the lessons they have to teach, adjust our plan, and “find a way.” Each time Diana failed, she looked for another way. She not only prepared her body. She prepared her mind. She tells CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta that when all else failed she concentrated on her hands. With her left hand she “pushed Cuba back” and with her right, she pulled Florida toward her.

You Are Not Alone

The Official Diana Nyad DocumentatryDiana called herself a team leader. In fact, news reports told of how she stopped swimming a couple of miles away from shore to congratulate her team on their amazing accomplishment—what they had done “together.” In every interview she gives, Diana talks about how necessary it was to pull everything together.

There were weather conditions, everything from waves and temperature to having a prosthetic mask made to protect her face. But most of all, it’s the 35 member support staff: her coach, medical personnel, a team of kayaks and divers to ward off sharks, even weather-watchers to get the timing right. She says it only looks solitary. It is really a team making that journey. She was the one in the water.

In fact she would probably have failed this time if it had not been for her best friend and coach, Bonnie Stoll. 15 hours away from Florida, she was ready to quit and Bonnie looked out and said, “I can see the lights of Key West.” She was so close that she could not give up now. Sometimes it just takes one person saying the right thing that helps you cross the line and achieve your heart’s desire.

The Miracle of the Human Spirit

Is it a miracle that she made it? The miracle is what happens when a human being truly connects her mind, body and spirit in the present moment. Every element of her being had to be focused on each moment of the 53 hours and 54-minutes it took to complete that swim. Yes it was heroic and it took extreme courage. In her TED talk she shouts the word “courage” in her mother’s French. But what if we applied her principles to life every day?

Diana says the swim is a microcosm of life. But the entire journey is a life lesson for facing failure and seizing the opportunity to learn and try again. We can live the miracle and create extreme dreams of achieving apparently impossible goals. Diana’s example has shown us that we can achieve them if we don’t give up. Her swim has affected us all. We can make our life count, not waste a moment. We just need to “find a way.”

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