A recorded interview between Scott Duffy and Diana Nyad in which Nyad recounts her decades-long effort culminating in swimming from Cuba to Florida, emphasizing persistence and mental resolve in the face of physical dangers (sharks, box jellyfish) and repeated failures. She draws analogies to entrepreneurship, describes launching Everwalk (everwalk.com) and recent corporate interest, and discusses the importance of women mentors and role models.
Chapters
Hi, my name is Scott Duffy with Entrepreneur magazine and S1 Media, and I'm here with Diana Nyad. And I am so excited to get this opportunity to speak with you because you're such an inspiration. The only person who has swum from Cuba to Florida.
There's a long way, I'll tell you. I mean, check this out. Chasing a dream. For 35 years, I first stood on the shore in Havana. And at the age of 28, I was young. I was looking across brash like nothing get out of my way. I was humbled. And by the time I was 64, 64 five times, I finally made it to that.
It's a close to impossible challenge. And the point really wasn't that I made it. The point was that I didn't give up on it. That was the real point.
So, I mean, it seems like you're swimming against this, like you're fighting against this incredible foe in the sea.
Right? Right.
When things don't seem like they're going right, or maybe your body doesn't feel like it's strong enough to make it all the way across, where do you go? What do you do to overcome the adversity mentally resolve.
And maybe, you know, talking about entrepreneurs, maybe there's an analogy in the world of business, I mean, I don't know what the percentage is, but it's small. Of businesses that succeed, you got everything going from the first loan that you get to people who want to leave and move on to other things to, you know, you can't keep up the revenue that matching what you're putting into it. I've been in that world myself. And if your resolve, if your dream of what that business is is so moving to you, it's so inspiring, you'll get knocked down and you'll get back up. You'll get knocked down again. People talk about, oh, you know, 25 years ago we had this dream of a business. We failed and we failed and we went bankrupt. But we believed in it and we stuck with it and look where we are now. So that was me, you know, the sharks were around, literally.
And you weren't in a shark cage, were you?
Shark cage. And they're there. They know just where you are. You're in their territory. So you're up on the surface making a splash like a wounded, dying fish. Two, 2.2 miles away. All of them oceanic, white tips, bulls, tigers, lemons. They get there in a hurry and they're following you like, you know, I love sharks.
You sound like my daughter, my Daughter's nine years old and she loves sharks. And she goes through the list with me.
Well, you know what I love is when the shark experts talk to you, they say, look, you don't have to worry because sharks are intelligent. They know that the Homo sapien is not their food. They are not going to come up and eat you whole. Yes, they'll come up and take a leg.
It's a pretty serious event for me. But they say, don't worry, they won't eat you whole. They'll take the leg and then leave. Then you're bleeding to death and the others come in and take you. So there is a serious. But you know what? That box jellyfish, I'd rather see a shark this close, a big shark, 16 foot shark, and take my chance of punching in the nose, it's real. Than a little sugar cube sized box jellyfish. The most potent venom on earth. I should have died the night I was.
You got bit, you got bit.
Swarm. I should have died. And I truly believe it was Will that got me through. Most people die instantaneously. I don't say that to brag. That's what I'm saying. To go back to our original kind of conversation, resolve. When your resolve is that strong, you will get through anything.
And sometimes, you know, in business, it feels like we should die. And you know, one of my mentors, Dave Meltzer, he taught me that sometimes the purpose of being in business today is to be in business tomorrow. Right. Maybe the purpose of that stroke you're taking now is to make the next.
Stroke also, I guess, you know, I'm at the moment launching an initiative, a business called Everwalk. Okay, so it's everwalk.com we are leading people on epic walks. Like this fall, we're going to walk from Boston up to Portland, Maine. And we got hundreds of people following us. But two years ago, if you had talked to me, we'd say, we can't get any funding. It's like everybody says, yeah, it sounds great. Where are we going to make any money on this? We don't want to sponsor you. What if somebody dies on the road and it's our fault? So we've been flexible, we've been saying, I don't want to change the dream, epic walks, but how can we make them possible for the business factor? And so now all of a sudden, Marriott Hotels and United Healthcare and Johnson and Johnson are saying, you know what, that girl who swam from Cuba to Florida, people want to be epic like her. And people can walk, they want to do this thing. Let's get behind it. So we're still not big, but we're growing. And it's partly because we said we got to be flexible. We got to do what the people, the business people need, but we're not going to sell our souls. We still want to be Epic Walkers. So that's what everwalk's all about.
You know, my daughters are both swimmers. They're seven and a half and nine years old, and it's so awesome for them to have female role models to look up to. Can you talk about the role of women mentors and women mentoring other women?
Well, you know, all I have to do is look at people like Michelle Obama, you know, and I know Hillary is kind of off the map at the moment, but I'm a big fan and an admirer. So, you know, they talk about the glass ceiling and some young women. If you interview young women right out of Harvard, they'll say, you know, there's no glass ceiling anymore. We can do anything we want. They're going to learn that there is still. Like, you could talk. You could talk to any African American. They could tell you think that everything's all nice and equal. The fight is over. It's not over. And you talk to Asian Americans the same thing. You talk to women. So your girls, you got to tell them that they're going to have to fight a little harder than the guys around them to get what they want, to be what they want in this world. We're not there yet.
Well, hey, Diane. And I add, it is amazing to be with you. Thank you so much. And really, thank you for being such an amazing inspiration to us and for my daughters.
