Super Soul Special: Diana Nyad, Part 2: Find a Way

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1:00I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time. Taking time to be more fully present. Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now. Welcome to part two of our conversation. Last time we talked, Diana Nyad described how she defied all odds when she made that 53-hour landmark swim from Cuba to Florida. For more than three decades, that span of water lingered in her imagination, the possibility of conquering it remaining an unfinished dream. Diana's historic journey was chronicle in the documentary The Other Shore.

1:47Instead of breaking her will, the obstacles she faced on each attempt were met with a personal mantra that carried her along even as she continued to fall short of her goal. The mantra, find a way. By her side, throughout the journey, was a dedicated team led by Diana's business partner and best friend, Bonnie Stoll. Now, almost as soon as you finished the swim from Cuba, I could not believe this, in you walking up on the shore. That moment, in that moment, is that just surreal? because you can't even believe it's happening? I have to tell you the truth. In all the swimming practices, you have to go, the words are, until no more seawater lies beyond.

2:26So we're talking about even if seawater's up to your ankles, you're not done yet. So that's why the team was saying, keep back, keep back. So tell me this. When you now step back, when we started this, you were saying very proud of yourself. Are you amazed? I mean, because when the rest of the world looks at you, I call you warrior woman. But it does seem like an impossible thing for a human being to do. Are you kind of amazed at yourself? I'm more proud of myself because, you know, when the question comes, can you quite believe it? Can you really grasp on it? Do you have to see the pictures? Have you wrapped your brain around it?

3:05Yeah, have you wrapped your brain around it? That's the best way to put it. I have, Oprah, because I always believed in it. I always saw that day of walking up on that shore. Just as a motivation to get through a 12-hour swim, I imagined what would, it was this ego thing. I imagined what would happen when I reached shore, I would just give this poignant speech. You know, it would be the, you know, my friend said to me, well, it'll be a tragedy if your throat swells up and you can't breathe anymore. Not because you can't breathe, because you won't be able to talk when you get to shore, My friends know me.

3:40But the truth is, I always imagined, even in those other attempts when I didn't make it, what will I say when I get to shore? Well, this time, there wasn't any of that. I was so in the moment. I never had that rehearsed. There wasn't any PR moment whatsoever that was absolutely authentic to what I was feeling with those people giving me their eyes. Like, you know what? Those weren't people just having some fun. Like, oh, this cool thing just happened on the beach. They were looking at me like, we just witnessed what we need to believe for our eyes, that you truly didn't give up, that you found a way after all these years and all these obstacles to get to this beach.

4:19And I need to feel that for my life. That's what those people were feeling. Absolutely. They were crying. Absolutely. And so I was in a moment, and I didn't rehearse any of that. But making it didn't surprise me at all because I believed it and never let go of it. Now, one of the things that Bonnie had said, your best friend and business partner and coach and, yes. Yeah. She was quoted in the New York Times as saying, I think that Diana thinks that it will change her life, and I think Diana will be disappointed that it doesn't change her life. Yeah, yeah. Did this change your life? You know, of course not.

4:50You know, when I was done, you know, going home to be with my dog and being with my friends and having this satisfaction of knowing who I am in this life and not having any regrets about it and really sticking with something, you know, no matter how impossible it seemed. That's what's important to me, not, you know, superficial things in my life. That's not what makes one happy. Maybe not change, but I would say, did it enhance you? Did it elevate you? I think it just confirmed. It confirmed, you know, I knew who I was, and this just walking out on that beach, I was like, for the four years, no matter how deep the valleys were of disappointments and uphill climbs to get it organized again.

5:31The training is grueling. Yes. You just, people don't know what this sport is like. I heard you say in the TED Talk, which is funny, because I remember when I was training for the marathon years ago with Bob Green. Yeah. And he'd say, we're going to go run 10 miles a day or 12 miles a day. And if I came within, you know, one-tenth of a mile was short, I would be like, I got to run back to finish it. And you were the same way with swimming. Yeah, yeah. The 15, 18, 20, 22, 24-hour swims, all of them, which would be marathons unto themselves, just hundreds and hundreds of them. So to do this, I thought we were going to do it in 2010, but there was weather.

6:07And then 2011, there was jellyfish. Then 2012, there was, you know, storms and jellyfish occurred. So four years of this training, not to mention the 35 years of the Dreamian training before. I walked up on that beach just filled with pride in myself that not once did the dream flounder. Not once did I say, do I really want to do this? This is just so darn hard. Or, you know, people are dropping off my team like flies. They just don't believe it anymore. I never, ever lost belief that it was going to happen. You know, you have to dare. You know, you have to fail over and over again sometimes. Yeah, Brene Brown says you have to dare greatly.

6:47You have to dare greatly. I know it's a great phrase. Yes, dare greatly. Getting in the ring. Yeah, get in the ring. Getting in the arena. Get bloody, get dirty and fail. What did you feel like the next morning? Were you tired? Were you sore? Were you able to get out of bed without? I'll tell you what happened. What? The next morning I'm lying in bed and, you know, I've been neurotic about the weather for four years. Will it happen? Where are the east winds? Where are the hurricanes? Will we ever get a chance to do it? It's so hard to get the conditions. So I'm lying in bed the next day. The mouth is awfully sore with it.

7:13And I turn on the television in the morning, and Sam Champion from Good Morning America comes on with the weather, and he says, there's a hurricane brewing in the Atlantic. And I said, I don't give a crap. For the first time in four years, I just don't give a crap. Wow. Yeah, that's what I was feeling the next day. It's over. I'm almost happier that it's over than I am that I did it. Just the push was so hard, so relentless, so difficult that just to have it over. I walk around my house saying, I'm not calling Cuba. I'm not calling Hillary Clinton to ask me to get Cuba's permissions. I'm not planning the training for the winter.

7:57It's done. It's finally done. This has been long. It's really been 35 years. Not many athletes have a story like this. You know, I love a story. And this is, I'm living a drama, you know. It's deeply satisfying, you know. Like I said before, it's not this superficial happiness. Like, oh, I won. No, no. It's going to last me a long time. Not to not do anything else, but just that I finally stuck with it and finished it, you know. Like, I deserve this. And our team deserves it. No sooner than you had come to shore that people started questioning your integrity. Yeah. Yeah, that the haters came out.

8:37And I'm like, people, my Lord, would you leave the woman alone? She just swam for 53 hours. What did that feel like, though, having people say, you know. It was a fraud. It was a fraud. Yeah, I know. Can you imagine? I mean, first of all, we had 44 people out there, people of great scientific repute. They're not going to be involved with something that was shady, you know, by any means. But there are two factions of that. One is people have a right. You know, if somebody else did it, I would respectfully, you know, not in some rush to judgment statements to press, but I would go quietly to a swimmer in their team and say, you know, I'd like to look at the navigational log because all of us have tried this too hard.

9:20And it did seem impossible. So, you know, we need to have your observers logs and their data from the GPS machines. But I didn't mind those people. Got on a three-hour and 22-minute call with the marathon swimmers, but all respectful and all the questions they should ask. How did you go about this? The navigator, brilliant man, John Bartlett, went through three hours of, this is where we were at hour 27. The current was facing this way. It was going at this speed. Diana's speed was this. We were at a vector going like this. And they said, oh, well, we get that. Why didn't someone just explain that before?

9:53Were you on that call because they were challenging you? Most of them were very reasonable and respectful, and they just said, you know, any big record needs to be vetted. And I agree with that. And I said, I'm here for it. One guy, I mean, he had things like, I know you couldn't have done it because only a mere 17 hours after you finished the next morning, you were at a press conference, even though you were still swollen, but you were laughing and orating and telling stories. Impossible to do 53 hours and get up. And I said, that is patently absurd. We could go out, you know, on the street and find people who are just genetically capable of staying up for days and have been through war stories.

10:35So that's crazy. The other people were reasonable and just wanted to know how many people were there. Was the observers logs every minute? Was there somebody observing every minute who wasn't on my team that I wasn't grabbing onto the boat, getting out on the boat using flippers? and they are, I believe, I got many apology and respectful notes from that group of swimmers when it was over to say, please forgive us for doubting, but we needed to ask these questions. It's over. Congratulations. It's history. Wow. Yeah, so I had to suffer through it, but I guess I had to. You had to. But do you think we are in a culture where we put people on a pedestal, athletes on a pedestal, but also want to see them fall down?

11:15Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Sure. Yeah. The bigger you are, the harder they want you to fall. Absolutely. Yeah. So you've said that marathon swimming, though, is a microcosm of life itself. Let's talk about that. The microcosm of it is, I like that you go through obstacles. You feel good and you don't feel so good. How do you find a way to get through the valleys? How do you keep believing? And then you see the other shore and you say, you know, I got through my marriage or I got through my cancer. Whatever it is we're all going through every day, if you really want to get there, you can find a way.

11:50And that's what this sport is all about. Yeah. Yeah. Was 60 hard for you? Because I'm getting ready to turn 60. Wasn't hard. You know, only in this way, as you know, the older you get, the clock starts ticking faster. Yeah. You know, you're 30 and say, oh, I got all the time in the world. I'll go that and I'll be this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, you're 60. You start counting the years because, you know, are we going to be vibrant at 90? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe not. Yeah. When you were 10 years old and in the fifth grade in your 1978 memoir, you wrote about an essay that you'd written, right? A fifth grade teacher.

12:24She's one of these wonderful teachers of my era of kids who saved all their favorite kids. She had a big cabinet of all. So I was getting a little bit of notoriety in my 20s swimming around Manhattan. And she wrote me and she said, I saved your essay in fifth grade about when we said the title is what I will do for the rest of my life. So most fifth graders write, I'm going to be a fireman. I'm going to be a nurse. Yes. And so this is what I wrote. My mother says that her father lived to be 79. Her mother's still living and my father's parents are still living. It would probably be a good guess that I will live to 80 years, which means I have 70 years left to go.

13:04I want to see all the countries of 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. Oh, Lord. Just to coin a phrase. I need to read at least one major book every week. I need to remember that my 70 years are going to go by too quickly. And that's the only really important phrase of this, I guess. But how many 10-year-olds, honestly, it's not to make myself special.

13:39That's just my particular little eccentricity. when you're 10, you can't imagine being 11. No. You can't. You're like 10 in three months, and when is my birthday? Yes. So I'm saying I need to remember that my 70 years are going by too quickly, and I must say I have felt that all my life. Yes. As we get older, the clock ticks, but for me it's always ticking. This is what's so interesting, and as you're reading this, I hear it differently than when I read it, but that when you turned 60, you started thinking about your mother dying at 82 and said, I have 22 more years. When you were 10, you say, I got 70 more years based on, you know, your mother's father dying.

14:19So you're a person who's always been consciously aware of the time and the time passing. Except the difference between now, I guess the evolution for me now at this age is that I used to spend a lot of time beating myself up and regretting the past. I used to spend a lot of time in fantasizing the future too and worrying about the future, things I can't control. What if this happens? What if that happens? But I now am more in the power of now. And that's how to reckon with. If there really are only 18 years left, if I am going to die at 82, then what more can I do about it than be in this chair looking your eyes and being in this moment?

14:59I'm just right here, right now. And that's the best I can do. What more can I do? And I think that's the best all we can do is be now and do everything in your potential to be the best of yourself in this moment. Yeah. You've reached that wonderful point in life in the Derek Wellcott poem where he says, their time will arrive when you greet yourself arriving at your own front door. Give wine, give bread to the person whom you've ignored all these years, and you will sit and feast on your life. I've never heard that before. Oh, it's an amazing poem. But that's what you have the opportunity to do now.

15:36I'm feeling that. It wells up deep, and it doesn't have anything to do with the, you know, does it change your life overnight? I'm the same person I was as I was before Labor Day weekend. I want to, Oprah, a lot of people say to me now, well, now you're going to swim in the Pacific Ocean. I mean, what could be bigger than this? I say, it's not about the ocean. It's not about the swimming. I discovered at 60 that I wanted to get these values straight in my life so that when the end comes, I can say, I don't know about those early years. I was kind of just rolling through, dancing as fast as I can like all of us do.

16:09But you get to a point where it doesn't matter what's happened to you. It doesn't matter what you've been through. You can't blame anything anymore. You are your own person, and you take charge of your life, and you decide who you want to be and how you want to live this one, what does Mary Oliver say, what are you doing? With this one wild and precious life. What are you doing with it? And it's a one-way street. And we're not kidding ourselves. When you get to 60 and 70 and 80, you're about at the end of the road. So, of course, I feel vital. I feel I'm in the prime of my life. And maybe I'll sit here with you 10 years from now and feel even more so at 74, maybe.

16:44But we're definitely getting toward the end of that road more than I'm at the beginning. And I feel that whatever I set out to do, you know, forget about the world records and the first time in history. That's all wonderful. I don't negate that. I don't deny that it feels like a real ego pleasure to do something even young people have never done before. But really what I walk around smiling about right now is that I can be proud of this person I am. And I hope that, you know, people are going with me to find their own way, find a way in their own lives. And they seem to be telling me that. Find a way.

17:20Yeah. Find a way. Yeah. You told our producers that you're not a God person, that you're a person who's deeply in awe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not a God person. And do I argue against my friends who are, you know, religious, Buddhist, Jews, Christians? Do you consider yourself an atheist? I'm an atheist. But you're in the awe. Yeah, but, you know, I don't understand why anybody would find, you know, a contradiction in that. I can stand at the beach's edge with the most devout Christian, Jew, Buddhist, go on down the line and weep with the beauty of this universe and be moved by all of humanity.

18:02All the billions of people who have lived before us who have loved and hurt and suffered. So to me, my definition of God is humanity and is the love of humanity. And as we return to, you know. Well, I don't call you an atheist then. I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder and the mystery, that that is what God is. Okay. That is what God is. God is not the bearded guy in the sky. It's not bearded, but I guess there is an inference with God that there is a presence. There is either a creator or an overseer. I don't criticize anybody because you know what? The definition of life is we will never know.

18:40We will never know. Until that last breath. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe it's an oh wow one for you as it was for Steve Jobs. Whoa, I should have been praying all these years. I'm going the wrong way. But for now, I don't criticize anybody. People tell me they see ghosts. They see ghosts. People tell me that they remember past lives back to the Middle Ages. They remember them. People see God and feel God and that's their faith. And I have nothing to say about it. Just for me, I'm an atheist who's in awe. An atheist in awe. So do you consider yourself a spiritual person? even as an atheist? I do.

19:15I don't think there's any contradiction in those terms. I think you can be an atheist who doesn't believe in an overarching being who created all of this and sees over it, but there's spirituality because we human beings and we animals and maybe even we plants, but certainly the ocean and the moon and the stars, we all live with something that is cherished and we feel the treasure of it. Oh, I believe that and feel that so deeply. It's why every time I enter my yard or leave, I say, hello, trees. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just, the older I am, I walk around every day with, you know, flowers and buildings that people created.

19:57And, but certainly, certainly beings, you know, just every pair of eyes I look into, I see the souls. Okay. And how do you define that, the soul? A soul is your spirit. It's your love of humanity. It's your belief that there's more than you. There are people before us that you could weep to look at the discovery of an ancient city and realize that those people lived and they loved and they danced and they ate and they suffered. And they lived just as we are. So there have been so many 40 and 60 and 80-year lives, billions of them. And we all have souls, and I feel they're collective souls. Wow.

20:44Yeah. What do you think happens when we die? I think that the soul lives on because we have created so much energy. And when we display courage and hope, it lives on. But I do believe the body goes back to ash, and it is never more. How do you define spirituality versus religion? religion is a construct it's a man-made construct which back when was very important to keep people behaving and and and keep people um believing so that they had a community that they could be together on something with and and um and i can still respect that you know i have been in places of worship where i can i can feel that community and understand it i just don't believe in the being that sits over it, where spirituality has no construct at all.

21:35It's feeling and it's faith and it's being in touch with this magical world we live in. What do you think is the purpose of the human experience? That's a big one. Part of it is to remain in mystery. And I don't believe we will ever know why we're really here, but we just are here. So feel it, do something about it, leave it in some little better state than you could have. There are some people I know who just touched their neighborhoods. In my neighborhood, a man down the street lost his wife last year. He's got four kids on his own. One woman in our neighborhood, she's busy. She works two jobs.

22:15She's raising three kids on her own. So why should she be the one to take this up? But she did. She went around and left us all a schedule. Diana, you've got to deliver dinner to that guy every other Wednesday night. If you can't do it, get somebody else to do it. You've got, we've got to help. And she, you know, she took it upon herself to leave our street in a more soulful, spiritual place than it had been. So I'm one for, you know, for believing that you change and you make the whole world a better place just by, within your household, living by the values you believe so that your brothers and sisters do too.

22:52And then maybe that goes down the street. And then maybe that goes to the whole neighborhood. And for someone like you, that goes out to a whole big bunch of our humanity on this planet today. So your swim, as we were discussing, has been called a triumph of the human spirit. How do you define that, the human spirit? The human spirit is filled with courage and hope. And I don't think you ever consciously decide to live those things out. You just are those things. If you're a courageous person, if you're a person filled with hope, it beams out of your eyes. When action's required, you all of a sudden jump to it.

23:34And I personally feel after being lucky and traveling this whole wide world that almost all of us have that in us and are dying to live it out. Were you able to accomplish what you set out to do as a fifth grader? I know you're not a surgeon, but do you have friends from all different backgrounds? Do you have, have you seen most of the world? Were you able to fulfill that 10-year-old's dream? I have. I would say that. You know, it's people. It's people. You know, from I've hung out with Maasai tribesmen. I've been with the, you know, presidents and the greatest athletes alive and all the people.

24:14And to me, every individual on this planet has a story. If I can tap just a few of those, that's my mission in life. I think it's just not even a mission. It's just maybe what I was meant to do, even though I don't usually use phrases like that. What is the best piece of advice you were ever given? Just be yourself. You know, I think when you're younger, you've got that outside, you know, vision of yourself looking in. Am I looking good? Am I sounding good? I know when I used to work on television, instead of really being in that moment, looking in that lens and saying, you know, I see someone sitting on their living room couch right now, and I'm just with her, talking to her, which you're so good at.

24:57I used to look in, and I'd have this glassed-over feeling. I'd say, you know, am I looking good? You know, how's my jawline looking? You know, how am I, you know, am I sounding intelligent? And someone said to me young at one time, just, you are a magnificent being, as we all are. Just be yourself. Just be your authentic self. And I think I have become largely and more and more my authentic self. Well, that's the best advice. Anytime anybody asks me about doing anything, I say, find a way to be yourself. Yeah, yeah. And if you can't be yourself, then don't do it. Yeah, yeah. Finish this sentence, I believe.

25:33I believe in love. Like the Beatles said, love is all there is. Never give up on your dream because? Because you'll get there if you find a way. I feel inspired by?

25:50My fellow human beings, all of them. My greatest joy is? Body, soul, and heart coming together. my definition of a champion is? A champion does right. A champion has ethics and morals. And it's not just about winning. There's so many people in sport who have won, and we can't remember their names, but Billie Jean King, it doesn't matter how many titles she won, it is that human being who led, who refused to let human rights be second to, and women's rights be second to the money and the Wimbledon trophies held above. A champion is Muhammad Ali, who thought beyond just his immediate winnings and the belt he was going to wear.

26:40It's someone who embraces humanity and carries humanity with their spirit. Do you see yourself as a champion? I do. I do. I don't want it to sound like hyperbole. I don't want to be some huge ego, but I feel a champion. Where do you feel most at home or at peace? With my friends. With my friends. Sure. When you're someone who's, when I'm with the people who you go a lifetime with, you know, and I know you know this, there's nothing like it. There's the love of, you know, mates and there's the love of animals and there's a love of children. And we're lucky to have as much love as we can get it.

27:17But for me, the love of friendship is just, it's above all. What do you know for sure? I know for sure that it goes by like lightning, and you can't, you can't, you can barely screech and grab onto it. I feel like that character grabbing onto the hands of the clock, like, please slow down. But I've learned for sure that all there is is now. There's no past and there's no future, really. All there is is now. That's all you've got. That was great. Thank you, Oprah. Thank you so much, Diana. That was wonderful. What a privilege for me. I'm Oprah Winfrey and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations the podcast you can follow Super Soul on Instagram Twitter and Facebook if you haven't yet go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe, rate and review this podcast join me next week for another Super Soul Conversation thank you for listening