TEDtalk Tuesday--How to best achieve success

So I think today's TEDtalk discussion is going to come in two parts.

Last night I got caught up watching a TEDtalk that Diana Nyad was giving about a world-record-breaking swim she was training to take at age 60.

...age 60...
I'm sorry, but does this woman look 60 years old to you?

She definitely doesn't to me.  She's got blonde hair and tanned skin.
(that tanned skin is from hours on hours of swim training in the caribbean, but still.  60?!)

She looks fantastic.


At 60 years of age, Diana Nyad was experiencing a sort of late-life crisis.  She was thinking too much about her past, and with the death of her mother (age 82), she began thinking too much about her own future.  She didn't exist enough in the present, and her solution to bring her back to the present was

"to chase an elevated dream, an extreme dream, something that would require utter conviction and unwavering passion something that would make me be my best self in every aspect of my life, every minute of every day, because the dream was so big that I couldn't get there without that kind of behavior and that kind of conviction."

At 60 years of age, Diana Nyad decided she was going to swim from Cuba to Florida. Without a shark cage. No one had ever done that before.


She estimated that at her age, and her speed, and the fact that she hadn't swum in 31 years, it would probably take her 60 to 70 hours of continuous swimming.

PLEASE WATCH HER STORY.  She's an amazing storyteller.

or, click the "read more" button below for a summary:

She went in convinced she could do it.  She trained every day, probably harder than any 60-year-old you've ever met.
She gathered experts from all over the world to help her accomplish this task.


She knew she'd have to worry about government documents, hypothermia, navigation, and sharks. But that's what the experts were for.  She was ready.


But what the experts weren't ready for was the box jellyfish that stung Diana on both arms in the first 2 hours of her swim.
It stung her EMT, too, when he jumped in to save her.

Box jelly venom is among the most deadly in the world:
it attacks the heart, nervous system, and respiratory system.
Survivors are often said to be in considerable pain for weeks
afterward with significant scarring where the tentacles hit.

and she kept swimming.


She described it as "being dipped in hot oil" and still she swam.  Despite the onset of paralysis, she refused to get out of the water.  Even when the medical team got there the next morning, she made them administer the drugs and oxygen while she was still in the water.


She was determined to go on.


But the next night, at dusk, ANOTHER box jelly got her.  They are from the waters of North Australia.  They shouldn't even be in the Gulf.  And yet there they were.


Diana gave in that time, and allowed the medical crew to take her out of the water.
But when she was treated and feeling well enough, she got right back in and continued her swim.


She swam for total of 41 hours before she recognized that she wouldn't be able to make it.


She gave that TEDtalk a month after she failed.


But she doesn't make it sound  like she failed. She doesn't sound like a defeated woman. And THAT'S what I want to talk about: how she can go in, at such an old age, and be completely convinced that she can complete this swim?  How can she get back into the water again after getting stung TWICE, and continue training after such a major setback? What kind of person do you have to be to be SO INTENSE?


Read Part 2 to get my thoughts on how Diana Nyad manages to root her mind so firmly in success.