Speaker's Corner: Going the Distance With Diana Nyad
September 10, 2008
Looking for a motivational speaker to get your staffers ramped up and ready to go? Take a look at the "Speaker's Corner" to get the scoop on some big names you may want to book
By Robert Tuchman
National Women's Hall of Famer Diana Nyad knows how much dedication and motivation it takes to keep progress "swimming" forward. From 1969-79, she was renown as the greatest long-distance swimmer in the world. She solidified that title when she recorded the longest swim in history—a 102.5 mile stretch from Bimini to Florida—in 1979. Afterwards, Nyad went on to become a senior correspondent for Fox Sports News and an anchor for ABC. Today, she hosts The Score, a weekly news show on KCRW, and is the host for Savvy Traveler.
In 1979, you recorded the longest swim in history with a 102.5 mile swim. What goes through your head while you are out in the ocean for that long a time? How tired were you when you came to shore?
I used to joke that each of those long swims I did back in the day were akin to spending six months on a shrink's couch. You are in an extreme state of sensory deprivation—ears sealed tight with five rubber bathing caps to preserve head warmth (you don't hear anything); goggles fogged; and head turning 60 times a minute for a couple of days non-stop—so you're not focusing on anything. You are truly left with your own thoughts and I found that, subconsciously, I would come out of each marathon more mature, more sure of what I wanted to do with my life. The phrase is "the loneliness of the long distance runner," but I can assure you runners have no idea what lonely long distance swimming is.
Of course I was tired physically at the end of every marathon I did. I lost 29 pounds, for instance, in the attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida…and that while taking in 1,100 calories every hour. Your eyes and mouth are swollen with salt-water exposure. Your body has been traumatized, to a degree, by the cold and the long non-stop hours, but the euphoria that comes with reaching the other shore seems to postpone the symptoms of the physical exhaustion for at least a few hours.
For 10 years, from 1969-79, you were considered the greatest long distance swimmer in the world. What is the feeling like of being considered the greatest in the world at something?
I'm sure I have no idea what Michael Phelps is feeling at the moment, or even what Tiger Woods feels, in accomplishing such incomparable superiority in their sports. Nevertheless, every rower or weight lifter or mountain climber or marathon swimmer who achieves things nobody on the planet has ever done beams with an inner pride and confidence. I remember that last mile of the last marathon I did—the Bahamas swim. I said two things to myself:
• One: "You will never have this feeling again in your life. You will never be able to power your way 100 miles over the open ocean."
• Two: "Remember this feeling of confidence, this feeling that you put your mind to this, trained for it to the “nth” degree, and got to this shore because you refused to back down to any obstacle in your way. Remember this for all the other circumstances of your life to come."
What lessons have you learned from swimming that have made you such a successful journalist?
We all experience failure. We all know heartache. It's the human condition. Marathon swimming is probably the ultimate metaphor for life's up's and down's. Similar to mountain climbing, you can feel strong one moment and then so low that you don't believe you have another step in you the next. It's then that you calm your spirit, reach inward and take one more stroke. Your faith in yourself must remain steady, even when your body is failing you. With journalism, the body doesn't struggle that way, but the disappointments are as real. And it's perhaps more difficult to accept them because, unlike sports where you are judged by concrete measurements, your opportunities outside sports can come to you by sheer luck&or not. All I know is, when I don't get a job I dearly want, I remember the metaphor of stroking on and turning to some other shore that would also mean something to me.
 What drives you to push yourself in athletics and career?
Oh, boy, like most of us, this could be a lifelong analysis. I have had a need to be special all my life. It used to be special by society's standards. Now that I'm more secure and older, it's special by my own personal definitions. The swimming was pure desire, in some respects. I could move quickly and efficiently through the water and it's only human nature to continue to strive via endeavors through which you can show your talents. But it would be shallow of me not to recognize that I was sexually molested as a young girl, first by my father and then by my coach. And now, in retrospect, it is perfectly clear that I was desperate to be regarded as a champion swimmer, a superlative student, a successful journalist because my self-esteem had been rocked so deeply by the criminal actions of those two men. As I've aged and found self-forgiveness, I've dropped the unquenchable thirst to be respected and my drive to tell stories comes much more from fascination in the subjects themselves, rather than the ego boost from the public's reception of the stories.
Who was your favorite athlete growing up?
I must have seen Burt Lancaster in the "Jim Thorpe Story" a hundred times as a kid. I could recite every single line. And every single time, when he sat downtrodden and heartbroken in the stands, looking out at the empty field, I cried—just as hard the 100th time as the first. I wanted to be Jim Thorpe. And when the U.S. Olympic Committee rescinded their punishment many years later and re-awarded his Olympic medals to him, post-humously, I cried yet again.
What do you enjoy most about giving speeches and making appearances?
I've been very lucky in my life in that I've traveled to almost every corner of the globe. And if there's any overriding observation from those experiences, it's that I believe all of us are basically the same. We all hope and dream, need food and water, feel fear, want to know love and want to be valued by our community. When I get up in front of 200 or 2,000 people, I feel the connection with those eyes and minds and hearts that I see out there. There are many things in this life that I'm not good at but I would say that I have a particular talent for public speaking and that's because I am utterly sincere in sharing stories that make a universal connection. And that in turns makes me emotionally satisfied to touch people and to feel the collective bond in the room.
How do you prepare for speaking engagements?
Invariably, the CEO or the like at a speech will ask if he can take my notes and place them on the podium for me. When I tell him I don't have any notes, he goes into a semi-panic and runs to ask which idiot hired me for the gig.
I prepare by spending some focused time in wondering who these people are. What are they going through—in their work place, in the particular times of their lives. I try to create an arc of stories that make them laugh, make them think, make them cry. Nothing makes me know I've succeeded as much as people telling me they were right there and could visualize each situation. I like to think I create theater. And, as a matter of fact, I do believe I have a poignant and entertaining one-woman show in me. Now, do I have the guts to mount it?
Do you enjoy the interaction with clients, signing autographs and taking pictures?
Well, again, I'm not now nor have I ever been such a big celebrity that signing autographs has translated into a chore of long hours of fake smiling. Even back when I was best known by the public at large (the late 1970's), my fan base was sincerely interested or inspired by what I had done, as opposed to fans of movie stars who get a thrill by just staring into a beautiful pair of eyes they know from the big screen. I can't say I love sitting for an hour chit-chatting with people as I sign autographs at an appearance, but I figure if anybody wants to tell me a bit of their own life story and values my signature for their child, I should consider myself lucky.
Most outrageous thing you have been asked to do by a client who booked you?
After I swam around Manhattan in 1975, I had a press day with the then-mayor of New York, Abe Beame. Mayor Beame gave me the key to the city, posed for a few pictures and then told me that the big annual fund-raiser for the city was coming up. Here was his plan: They were going to wine-and-dine some heavy donors on a fancy yacht that would circle Manhatttan and he wondered if I would be willing to swim around next to the boat during their party, as the evening's entertainment. Mayor Beame offered me $20,000, which at the time was a huge sum of cash to me, but even the generous offer wasn't enough to persuade me to perform as a trained seal.
How many private appearances and or speeches will you do a year?
I'm averaging about 30 per year now. The schedule is heavier in the winter and spring, dead in the summer and moderate in the fall.\
Do you prefer speaking to certain types of groups or industries?
Oddly enough, I thought early on (I started public speaking 30 years ago) that I would love college or university crowds. I have been privileged to deliver a few commencement addresses and those moved me—all those young faces looking to you for wisdom at a critical moment in their lives.
But otherwise, I have pretty much dropped from the college campus scene. There is so much going on within a campus community, they have so many choices of activities any given evening and you can't possibly predict who has exams or hot dates or whatever else would draw them, other than you.
I must say that I do prefer a bigger audience than an intimate one. If I hear that I'm speaking to 1,600 real estate agents at a Coldwell Banker conference, I'm excited…not by the nature of the industry, but because I know the laughs will be bigger collectively, and the silence when they are riveted will be more momentous.
Favorite speech you gave or motivational moment?
I was riding in a limo to a conference a number of years ago. I won't mention who the celebrity was, but I was in the limo with a very big star who was the keynote speaker that day. I was a small fish who was going to be speaking at a breakout session down the hall.
This star was kvetching all the way there: "I hate these people with their stupid questions. I hate telling the same old stories and standing around listening to the fact that their sons are so talented that they are definitely headed for the Major Leagues…"
I said, respectfully, to this famous person that the day would come when people would no longer be paying him $50k to stand up and share a few of his life's stories. Me, I make considerably less than that fee per speech. But I am sincerely humbled each time. I do honor my talents as a speaker. I do believe that I both move people and entertain them. But to think that I came from such a minor sport and that my moment of sports fame was 30 years ago, I count my lucky stars that anyone wants to sit back and listen to me for an hour.
Favorite story you ever covered?
I've been doing a public radio column for 20 years now. I have covered numerous Olympic Games, NYC Marathons, several Tour de France races and many US Open Tennis Championships. I've had the chance to do stories on Mohammed Ali, Chris Evert, Brett Favre and Lance Armstrong. But the biggest response, BY FAR, was to the story I did on my mom who died last year. She was a French woman who never, ever understood sports and certainly didn't understand her daughter building big muscles and green hair with this crazy, fanatical swimming thing. But she was intrigued with this little girl who lived in her house and would get up at 4:30 in the morning, 365 days a year, without an alarm clock, because her passion to be the best was so alive. She was a champion ballroom dancer later in her life and she told me she finally felt what I must have felt all those years—the desire to perfect her routines and the thrill of performing them perfectly at competitions.
One of your favorite speakers to listen to?
I loved hearing Jerry Coffee tell his powerful Vietnam POW story. He held me breathless for 45 minutes.
Robert Tuchman is President of Premiere Corporate Events a division of Premiere Global Sports, formerly TSE Sports & Entertainment (www.tseworld.com). He can be reached at rtuchman@tseworld.com.
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