August 26, 2024 • 36 mins
In Episode #19, Matt and Ash share Diana Nyad's incredible story of swimming from Cuba to Florida. She became the first person to complete this long-distance swim, covering 103 miles in under 60 hours. Nyad attempted the swim four times before finally succeeding at the age of 63. Her journey was filled with challenges, including thunderstorms, waves, the Gulf Stream, cold water, sharks, and jellyfish. Despite these obstacles, Nyad persevered and inspired many with her determination and resilience. Despite multiple failed attempts, she never gave up on her dream. She finally achieved her goal, redefining age and limits. Her story teaches us to believe in ourselves, challenge societal limitations, and never give up on our dreams.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
What you think you can do, you can probably do more.
(00:04):
We have these limits that we set on ourselves
and 99% of the time we are so wrong.
I know we all have just a little more in the tank
to get the degree, to score more goals,
to get a pay raise that we don't think we can get
within our certain business, whatever it might be.
We can do so much more.
(00:24):
I also feel like the reason why we put these limitations
on ourselves is because society also puts these limitations
on us and tell us we can or cannot do these things
because we do or do not fit this mold.
In the story, when she comes to Bonnie and was like,
hey, I want you to help me do this.
And Bonnie's like, you tried this at 28.
What makes you think that you can do this at 61 now?
(00:47):
Pointing to her brain, she says, this is what I didn't have
then, the brain, the life experience, the chutzpah,
the mental ability to really pull this off.
From a societal standpoint, people are telling her,
she's 61 years old, like you can't do this.
But she's like, no, I can.
I have something that I didn't back when I was 28.
I have so much more knowledge.
(01:08):
I have this self-belief, this mental ability
to actually pull this off, to actually do this.
And I think her recognizing that and saying that
just is a testament to the power of our minds
and what we really do put our mind to.
We can actually accomplish ourself.
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Ditto.
(01:36):
I'm Ashley Hatch, professional soccer player
for the Washington Spirit.
And I'm here with my co-host, Dr. Matt Moore.
Matt, how are you doing today?
I'm doing really well.
Yeah, at the time of this recording,
we just started school.
And so it's fun to get back after it
and get back on a college campus.
(01:57):
I'm wearing my Utah hat to support my team.
And at the time that this is gonna be released,
the college football will be underway
and campuses are just beaming again.
And I just love the energy of college campuses.
Funny story, I was walking on campus the other day
and I'm walking upstairs outside and I tripped.
(02:22):
Oh no, it's not even winter time,
you can't blame on the ice.
I'm like one of the old guys now,
like college students see on campus tripping over stairs.
And luckily I didn't feel too embarrassed
because I'm not at that stage in life anymore where I care.
Yeah, it's a good stage to be in.
Nonetheless, I got up and I'm like, oh my gosh,
my wife would have been just dying right now
(02:44):
because she thinks that's funny.
Anyways, how are you Ash?
I'm doing well, thanks for asking.
Just playing soccer all day every day,
but it's fun, our season's I guess starting up again.
We have a regular season game coming up against Kansas City
so we're preparing for that and I'm excited.
That's a big one.
(03:04):
It is a big one.
Yep, they're I think number two on the table right now,
we're number three.
I was gonna say, you're number,
you're in the top three, who's number one?
Yeah, Orlando.
Yeah, so it'll be a good match
and we haven't put them at all this season
so I'm excited, it's gonna be fun.
(03:25):
What kind of baller, who's like a baller on their team?
Who's kind of their star?
Well, they have a lot of stars,
but Chowinga is their star right now.
She scores a lot of their goals.
She's a strong, fast striker.
Cool.
So yeah, we're prepping for that and yeah, we're excited.
It'll be fun.
(03:45):
Awesome, I love it.
This is my transition into our topic today.
You ready for this transition?
Yeah, let's hear it.
Clear out of left field, here we go.
Speaking of amazing women athletes.
That was pretty good.
It was a good transition, yes.
(04:06):
Yeah, here we go.
Ashley and I wanna talk about another yet incredible story
that you could unpack from 50 million different angles.
Hopefully we can give it justice
with how we're gonna talk about it today.
It's not gonna be too long,
but again, we wanna give it the airtime,
(04:27):
if you will, that it deserves.
Incredible story.
So I came across this particular story,
this particular woman in 2000, I think it was 15 or 16.
She was speaking at a conference
that I was at, a sports psychology conference.
And this woman's name is Diana Nyad, N-Y-A-D.
(04:52):
And her story just blew me away.
I had no idea she even existed or what her story was
until she was speaking at this conference
and she was such an incredible public speaker,
motivational speaker, I was like, oh my gosh,
who is this person?
So Diana Nyad, to sum it up, is a long distance swimmer.
When I say long distance,
you long distance swimmers out there
(05:14):
probably have to correct me,
but it's usually in the ocean.
They don't just swim in a pool back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth.
That's reserved for the Katie Ledecky's of the world.
These people go miles in the ocean,
whether it's around an island or from one island
to another island or around a bay,
or in Diana's case, she went from Florida to Cuba.
(05:37):
And then she has a movie on Netflix.
She has one that's like a dramatization of her story
and then an actual kind of documentary
somewhere out there as well.
I read her book and it was phenomenal.
The book's called Find A Way by Diana Nyad.
And again, incredible story.
Before I get into kind of the weeds of what she did
(06:00):
and why she is such an incredible athlete,
I just want to say that I think she's a great actress
and incredible athlete.
What do you know about her, Ash?
I mean, do you know of her story?
When did you come across her story, et cetera?
Yeah, we actually watched her,
the newest Netflix movie about her
(06:21):
for our like team movie slash theme for the year.
So we watched it in pre-season
and I had never heard of her or her story
or her accomplishment until that story,
until we watched, sat down and watched it as a team.
And it was really cool just to see her journey play out
and it was pretty remarkable.
But yeah, so I just know her from this year.
(06:45):
And that, it was on Netflix, right?
Is what you're talking about?
Yeah.
Do you remember the name of it?
I think it's just Nyad, but I could be wrong.
It's called Nyad, I think you're right.
Yeah, I think so too.
Okay, awesome.
I highly recommend to everybody to go watch the documentary,
the movie, and in my opinion,
(07:06):
I think the book is even better.
The book, like most books, it just goes into more detail.
And if you even are on a remote liking schedule
as it pertains to reading, I think you'll love it.
It's a really easy read and truly inspiring.
And so let me tell the audience why is she so inspiring?
Long distance swimmer, et cetera.
(07:26):
She's the first person slash woman to only,
I think she still is to date,
the only person to swim from the Florida Keys to Cuba.
Yes, across the ocean.
And she did this in 2013.
(07:47):
She not only did this as an incredible athlete,
but as an incredible older woman.
She was 63 years old when she did this.
For those of you that are thinking like,
wow, Florida to Cuba, it's pretty close,
but it's not that close.
How far is it?
It was 103 miles of continuously swimming across the ocean.
(08:13):
The pursuit took her in just under 60 hours,
I think it was 59 hours something something,
to swim the length.
She didn't just do it in 2013 and bam, she was good to go.
It had taken her years like the Alex Honnold story
to try to attempt and try to prepare for this.
(08:33):
And in fact, she attempted this swim four different times
before she was actually successful on her fifth,
which was in 2013.
Just incredible.
And then doing it in 60 hours.
So obviously that pertains to doing it in the daylight
and at nighttime.
(08:53):
I can't imagine being in the middle of the ocean
and nighttime swimming just freely.
She had an entire team with her.
So she had people in boats.
I think it was plural, not just one boat.
It might've been just one boat.
Anyway, she had a team with her.
Do you remember?
In the movie it's just one boat,
but when I did some research,
(09:15):
it said that her successful journey,
she had a 35 person team with her.
So like in the movie, who knows how accurate it is?
I'm sure parts of it are really accurate,
but with each attempt, her team got bigger and bigger
because she realized she needed more help
for different reasons.
And she brought in different expertise
(09:37):
for different things.
And so I feel like as she kept going on
throughout her journey,
her team kind of just kept growing and growing.
Yeah, okay.
So with that in mind, so we can paint a picture of this,
she's swimming and then the team's not allowed
to touch her or assist her physically in any way.
Otherwise she was disqualified
and she had to start over and it didn't count.
(09:58):
So she's all by herself just in the ocean swimming.
And for those of you that can't see,
I'm swimming right now.
Her team in the boat would make sure she's doing okay.
So she would do like vital checks, med checks every so often.
I think it was about every 90 minutes.
In addition, they would like feed her like a dog
from the boat.
(10:19):
Like she would land her back and people in the boat,
her team would kind of throw things in her mouth,
like globs of peanut butter and pasta,
and of course water and other things
to keep her going physically.
They were also in the water around her,
again, not touching her because they couldn't touch her.
There were shark divers on each side of her,
(10:41):
part of this navigational team
and doctors and weather experts, et cetera.
And so these shark divers would send out, I think,
like these electrical underwater beams
that were supposed to be a deterrent for sharks.
It wasn't a complete like in a cage.
She actually attempted that like on her first or second try,
(11:03):
but she didn't like being in a cage like that
and it felt weird.
And so she said, let's just get rid of the cage
on this fifth try.
And these shark divers had these kind of beams
to try to deter any interested sharks.
If the sharks were really interested,
they would have for sure gotten her
because they wouldn't have deterred them that much.
And then in addition, some of these divers provided
(11:25):
kind of this light stream at night,
especially for her to follow.
Because as you can imagine,
you can become very disoriented in the ocean,
especially when you're the one swimming
and you're not in a boat.
And then at night, and then in addition to the waves
that inevitably are going to push you off course,
you can kind of follow back on this light beam
(11:46):
or this light stream.
As you can imagine, just that alone would be
uncountable like problems, challenges, hurdles.
Some of them, just some, where it was the weather.
So she encountered thunderstorms, waves.
There's the Gulf Stream that where she was
(12:08):
from Cuba to Florida.
And so it would push her off course
the three or four times preceding
the fifth successful attempt.
That happened.
I think she got off course so much
on the third or fourth attempt
that it was just way too much to her,
for her physically to be able to attempt
to get back on course.
(12:28):
And then the water was cold.
And so she's swimming with this wet suit on,
trying to stay semi warm,
but hypothermia is definitely a part of the equation.
She got nauseous because of the waves
and the disorientation and the extreme fatigue.
So she's like throwing up some,
(12:48):
if not most of the food and the water
that she's trying to keep down
to try to sustain her body.
And then I've mentioned sharks.
One huge thing that,
I just can't imagine doing this,
that she encountered along the way were jellyfish,
especially box jellyfish.
(13:09):
So on her second or third attempt,
I forget the attempts,
but one of the reasons she had to quit
is she got stung by a box jellyfish.
And for those that don't know much
about box jellyfish like me,
they hurt really, really, really bad when you get stung.
And they can for sure kill you.
A lot of people that get stung by box jellyfish
(13:30):
die because of the poison and the inflammation
and what happens physiologically to a person
when they're stung by these type of creatures.
And she almost died.
She was almost killed by a box jellyfish.
And so once again, it was another deterrent
to try to avoid and figure out on her way
(13:51):
to the successful attempt that was the fifth.
Anyways, with all that in mind, Ashley,
what's going through your mind
when you see this human being attempting such a feat?
Incredible, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think it's really inspiring.
(14:13):
Like you said, if you look at her timeline,
her very first attempt, like you said, in 1978
was when she was only 28 years old.
And she had to stop because of strong winds.
They were pushing her off course.
And then like you said, at 61 years old,
she decided to try it again.
So she had an attempt in August 8th in 2011.
(14:37):
And then another attempt, September 25th, 2011.
That was the attempt where she got stung by,
I think our box jellyfish and man-of-war the same thing.
Because when I Googled it, it said man-of-war.
I think so, but I'm not like too competent
as it pertains to my same features.
So that was the one that she had to stop
(14:58):
because she had two stings.
And that was like, if she had gotten one more,
I think it would have been very detrimental to her health.
Yeah, I know.
And then in August 21st, 2012, she was only 50 miles out,
but her crew pulled her because of all the things
that you said, storms, jellyfish, sunburn,
(15:21):
being exposed to all of the elements.
The movie does a really good job of just showing
how physically, mentally, and emotionally
taxing this is, not only on her, but on her team.
And I think one thing that I loved about the movie
is how her relationship with her team members.
(15:43):
Totally.
She really had to sell them on this dream
and this goal of hers.
And once they were bought in, they were bought in,
and it was really cool to see them do their very best
to help her succeed and achieve this dream of hers.
But there is a part in this story, I'm assuming it was
(16:03):
after her probably fourth attempt when her crew pulled her,
she was really upset, but they were like,
we're trying to make sure you live.
We don't want you to die doing this.
And so they kind of had a breaking off.
This is in the movie, so I don't know how accurate
this is, correct me if I'm wrong.
But they kind of had a falling out,
(16:25):
and it was really hard for her,
it was really hard for her team,
but she was able to kind of like,
swallow her pride a little bit, go back to her team,
and say, you know what, like, I'm really sorry,
this isn't just about me, this is about you guys as well,
and I cannot do this without you.
And that was such a powerful moment in the movie,
because it's true, like, she would not have been able
(16:47):
to do this without them.
And then August 31st, she attempted her fifth attempt
where she finished on September 2nd,
her successful journey across the Florida Strait.
And like I said earlier, she had a 35 person team,
so I would imagine that team just continued to grow.
But I think the reason why it grew is because they all
(17:08):
bought into this vision, they all believed in her.
And I think her resilience, just her persistence,
like her perseverance, I don't know,
it's pretty fascinating.
And a question that I have for you, Matt,
in terms of kind of just like the psychological side of it,
most people aren't willing to do things this extreme
(17:32):
at that age.
We learn like in our human adolescent development classes
growing up that like, we do stupid things when we're younger
because our brain's not fully developed, right?
Or we're more willing to kind of put ourselves
in dangerous situations when we're younger.
But in Diana's case, she did the opposite.
(17:55):
She attempted when she was younger and she wasn't successful
but then when she reached the age of 61,
she was like, actually, I think I can do this.
And so in your opinion, like why do you think
she was able to then decide at age 61
that she could accomplish this amazing feat
(18:18):
that no one else has ever accomplished?
Yeah, yeah, there's so much to unpack.
I'm gonna give my opinion,
but I think somehow we need to get her on the podcast
in a future episode because she would be amazing
to ask her that herself and to hear it from her own mouth.
(18:39):
And reading her book and hearing her speak
at a conference in person and watching these documentaries,
there were like four major takeaways for me.
You mentioned most of them
and I think it's gonna answer your question.
Number one and first and foremost for me
and it's essentially the subtitle of her book,
Finding a Way, she had a powerful, clear vision.
(19:04):
She wanted to do this thing and she figured out
over the course of 30 years, 35 years, longer, 40 years,
something like that, how to do it.
And she brought in all these pieces,
she brought in all these people literally
to assist her with this vision of her,
(19:26):
with this goal of hers.
The second for me is, you mentioned it,
is this unyielding resilience.
I think resilience is a muscle
and it needs to be exercised, it needs to be strengthened
and for some reason at 61, maybe intuitively she thought,
(19:47):
all right, I think I have enough years under my belt
where I can actually do this now.
Most 60 plus year olds are on the opposite end
of the spectrum where they go,
I think I'm gonna ease off on life now
and actually retire, literally retire
from what I'm doing most of my life.
But for her it was like this shift of,
I have gained all this knowledge,
(20:08):
all this experience, I've met all these amazing people,
I think I'm now ready to do this
and I need to get my body into shape to be able to do that.
And I think a lot of people, especially in,
at least in the United States, at that age,
don't recognize that you can still be in physiologically
(20:30):
in really great shape.
It's at times, and this is for all of us,
not only for me, but for all of you,
all of us, not only at that age,
getting your mind to agree with the body
and vice versa, getting your body to agree with the mind.
And so her unyielding resilience for me was enormous
(20:51):
to be able to attempt it.
And then when you're in the actual attempts,
I mean, she did this five different times
and encountered weather and sharks and box jellyfish
and nausea and fatigue and all this stuff.
Again, my definition, adversity plus positive adaptation
equals resilience, and that's what she would do.
She would encounter these challenges, this adversity,
(21:14):
and then adapt, and then a small tweak and adaption,
and then another adaption, and then another adaption,
until ultimately she finds success.
And then you mentioned as well, Ash,
she was able to redefine age and limits.
I mean, these stories like Alex Honnold
and Diana Nyad, for so many reasons are so interesting,
(21:37):
but I think one of the overarching reasons
why we're so attracted to this is it's redefining
what we can do as human beings.
And in her case, it's redefining
what we can do as human beings,
but also what we can do at certain ages,
age, you know, on the age spectrum, so to speak.
And so for all of us, it's, at least for me,
(21:57):
I think it's a clear display of what you think you can do,
you can probably do more.
Like we have these limits that we set on ourselves,
especially psychologically, and 99% of the time
we are so wrong.
(22:18):
We can do so much more, whether it's 60% more,
10% more, 30% more, I don't know what that is,
but I know we all have just a little more in the tank
to get the degree that we don't think
we can actually accomplish, to score more goals
that we don't think we can score,
(22:38):
to get a pay raise that we don't think we can get
within our certain business, whatever it might be,
or swim from Florida to Cuba.
It's just astounding to me.
And then, you know, on top of all that, Ash,
like it's, once you're in the moment, psychologically,
what do you do?
(22:58):
Like how do you stay present?
How do you continue to revisit this muscle
and strengthening of a resiliency,
and continue to push and push and push until you reach
the shores of Cuba, literally and figuratively?
She did a number of things.
So she specifically and deliberately trained her mind,
(23:21):
especially in and around meditation and mindfulness,
so that when, not if, inevitably, psychologically,
she was waning and thinking about things
that weren't effective or efficacious in those moments,
that she could do something in those moments
to bring herself back and continue to swim one arm,
(23:43):
one leg kick after the other, after the other, for 60 hours.
So some of the things that she did,
I don't know if it went over in this particular movie,
but probably did, is she sang songs.
So it talked about in the book how she memorized
and sang over 80 plus different songs.
So in training for these attempts,
(24:04):
and especially the fifth one, she had memorized,
she had all these songs in her memorization
that she would turn to, and she would sing them,
and she would sing them and sing them and sing them.
And then in addition, when she got tired
of singing some of these songs, here's these mind tricks,
and they're so effective when we are good at it.
(24:25):
Instead of singing, she would also count.
So she would count in Spanish, in English, and in French.
And it said that she would count up to 200
in these languages and then try to count back down
in all three of these different languages.
And so she was singing songs,
she was counting in different languages,
and then occasionally having kind of conversations
(24:46):
when she could, not always because her face
is in the water, with her team,
and finding ways to just stay present
and to continue to strengthen this present awareness
muscle of resiliency and do what she needed to do.
So those are a number of thoughts that come to my mind
(25:07):
in terms of major takeaways from this incredible story.
Yeah, no, that's fascinating.
I think back to what you were talking about earlier
of kind of these limitations that we put on ourselves.
I also feel like the reason why we put these limitations
on ourselves is because society also puts
these limitations on us, whether it's age, gender,
(25:29):
whether you have a degree or not, social status,
just income, whatever it is, society tends to put
these limitations on us and tell us we can or cannot
do these things because we do or do not fit this mold.
And in the story, her best friend Bonnie,
when she comes to Bonnie, was like,
(25:51):
hey, I want you to help me do this.
And Bonnie's like, you tried this at 28,
what makes you think that you can do this at 61 now?
And she said exactly kind of what you were talking about,
Matt, it was her mind.
And I'm gonna butcher this quote because there's a word
in it that I have no idea how to pronounce.
(26:12):
H-U-T-Z-P-A, do you know what that word is?
H-U-T-Z-P-A?
Google says to, Google says,
Hutzpah.
Hutzpah.
Hutzpah.
It means extreme self-confidence or audacity.
Yeah, okay, I've heard of that.
So anyway, I'm gonna give you the quote, Hutzpah.
(26:37):
Anyway, so her friend asked her like,
what makes you think you can do this?
And she says, pointing to her brain, she says,
this is what I didn't have then, the brain,
the life experience, the Hutzpah, the ability,
the mental ability to really pull this off.
And I think that's so cool because, you know,
we may, from a societal standpoint,
(27:03):
people are telling her she's 61 years old,
like you can't do this, but she's like, no, I can.
I have something that I didn't back when I was 28,
I have so much more knowledge, I have this self-belief,
this mental ability to actually pull this off,
to actually do this.
And I think her recognizing that and saying that
(27:23):
just is a testament to the power of our minds
and what we really do put our mind to,
we can actually accomplish ourselves.
And so yeah, I think that quote goes perfectly,
aligns perfectly with what you were saying
and why she was able to pull this off.
And I just, I think it's just very admirable
(27:45):
that she was willing to tell people like, no, you're wrong.
Like, I can do this.
And that probably has also fueled her purpose
a little bit too, because so many people
were telling her that she couldn't.
Sometimes that can also be super powerful.
But yeah, I think it's just really inspiring.
(28:05):
Totally.
It's funny, I just shared a post on LinkedIn
a week or so ago that it relates to this beautifully.
And I wanna invite you, Ashley,
while I'm telling this story,
to think of an experience in your own life
that you can share.
So I know I briefly alluded to this on this podcast before,
(28:26):
and I'm gonna share my post, what I did on LinkedIn,
with you all here.
So hopefully not everybody follows me on LinkedIn,
so this is regurgitating information.
Again, when I was a student, I was a master's student,
I've never been the academic type.
I've never been the straight-A guy
sitting in front of the classroom.
In fact, I remember being in my doctoral program
(28:48):
and the teacher at the front was talking about this,
and he goes, most of you doctoral students here
have been straight-A students,
and school's kind of been your thing up until now.
And I raise my hand and I go, not me,
I've never been that person and I never will be.
Anyways, when I was a master's student,
I came and confided in an advisor,
(29:09):
and I let them know, or I talked to them
about wanting to pursue a PhD.
And their response was, I just don't know
if you're a PhD student, or I don't know
if you're a PhD type, or the materialistic type of student
that needs to happen for you to get into programs.
And I'm like, wow, okay, there's a shot
(29:30):
to my self-confidence, yeah.
But I went to pursue my PhD, I got a PhD, and I did it.
And it wasn't to be like, ha ha, sucker, look what I did,
and I sent them a picture of me holding up my degree,
which would have been kind of funny.
And it wasn't because I was particularly smart,
(29:50):
it was because I knew deep down
that I could do something hard.
I had never been the type of student, again,
to go get a PhD, and still to this day,
when I tell friends what I do for a living,
and I have a PhD, sometimes I go, really?
You did that?
Like, I knew you from high school,
and you were just the opposite.
(30:12):
Anyways, moral of the story,
similar to Diane and I's experience,
is I knew that I could do something hard.
At that point in my life, for some reason,
in my mind, it was, okay, I can do this
because I can do hard things, and I'm gonna pursue this,
and I'm gonna accomplish this.
Similar to that experience.
So here's my question for you, Ash.
(30:33):
Have you had anything similar happen in your life
in terms of maybe you not believing in you,
and then you go and do something to prove yourself wrong,
or just to get it done, or maybe like me,
or maybe even like Diana, other people have said,
no, no, no, you can't do this.
You're not good enough, or you're not old enough,
(30:54):
or you're too young, or whatever it might be.
And then what happened?
Have you had those type of experiences,
big or small, in your life?
Oh, yeah, so many.
I feel like especially in the sports world,
when you just have everyone's opinions,
whether it's coaches, or parents, or other players.
One that does come to mind as you were sharing yours,
(31:14):
when I was probably around 12 or 13,
we actually lived in St. George, Utah at the time.
So I grew up in Southern California, but in middle school,
we moved to St. George, Utah for like a year and a half,
and then we moved to Arizona,
where I finished out middle school,
and the rest of high school.
(31:34):
And because we were from Southern California,
there was a trainer there that my dad would,
anytime we were visiting,
he would take us there to train with him.
He was really good.
He had trained like a lot of pros.
He was a pro himself.
And it was just really good training sessions,
and I really enjoyed it.
I learned a lot.
It was kind of scary and intimidating,
(31:54):
because he expected the best.
And so if he messed up, you would hear about it.
But I think we paid for like six sessions,
and when we had moved, we wanted to finish them.
So we came back,
and we did our last two or three, or whatever it was.
And then afterwards, I was getting in the car,
and my dad was having a conversation with the coach,
and kind of just like asking him what he thought
(32:16):
about me as a player, my skill level, my potential,
all the stuff that parents always wanna hear
about their child.
And I remember my dad, I came back in the car,
and he didn't say anything,
and I kind of like pried, and I was like,
hey, so like, what were you guys talking about?
And I could tell he didn't really wanna tell me.
And then he finally was like,
(32:38):
all right, I didn't really wanna tell you,
because I didn't want it to ruin your confidence
or anything, but he said you're a good player,
but not a great player.
And I was just kinda like, all right,
what does that even mean?
I don't know.
And I just remember having a conversation with my dad,
and he was just like, well, use it as motivation
(33:00):
to become a great player.
And from that moment on, I kind of just used it
as motivation.
And we would joke sometimes when I'd have
a really good game and score a bunch of goals,
or actually do something really successful,
like, oh, but you're a good player, not a great player.
That's awesome.
So that was one moment, I feel like early on,
where I got feedback that maybe wasn't
(33:24):
all sunshine and rainbows, but I definitely used it
as motivation to continue to improve.
And also, I wasn't gonna let one person's opinion
derail me from my goals and my dreams and my aspirations.
So yeah, that's one story that comes to mind.
It's amazing when we are actually able
to not let other people's opinions about us
(33:47):
define our potential.
Like, you gotta believe in yourself.
And if you don't, start to.
Start to find little ways to believe
that you're capable of performing X, Y, Z.
Little baby steps towards something
(34:07):
that ultimately maybe can be bigger.
With all these stories to say,
and especially Diana's story, again,
don't limit yourself, because we do it
way too often as human beings.
It's important to change our relationship
with how we relate with ourselves,
(34:30):
and how we believe in ourselves.
It's a topic that I consistently have
with athletes, coaches, students, et cetera,
in my professional life.
It's self-confidence and self-doubt.
We limit ourselves, especially psychologically.
If we can change that, not get rid of it,
because we're always gonna have self-doubt.
(34:52):
We're human beings.
But just change how we relate to it.
It's gonna make such a world of difference.
And you'll be able to have the Florida to Cuba swims
in your life, whatever those might look like.
And so hopefully it's an inspiring story
for you all that are listening.
(35:13):
I highly, highly encourage you to, yes,
go watch the documentaries or the movies,
but also to read her book, Find A Way by Diana Nyad.
I promise it'll be well worth your time.
You probably won't put down the book just like me.
And she probably has a bunch of speeches on YouTube as well
that you can go look up.
(35:34):
That's kind of my thoughts.
And I'm hoping that everyone listening
will find interest and passion and motivation behind it.
Yeah, yeah.
I think I wanna close it out with what she told reporters
after she had finished her swim.
She said, I have three messages.
One is we should never, ever give up.
(35:57):
Two is you're never too old to chase your dreams.
And three is it looks like a solitary sport,
but it's a team.
And I feel like those are really good life messages
to kind of just live by.
And I think it's really cool that she was able
to embody all of those lessons throughout her journey
(36:20):
and then share that with the world.
So anyway, thanks.
Thanks for your thoughts on the story
and go look into Diana Nyad.
Yes, like, share, love, well, whatever this episode
and then go look up her story, everybody.
Hopefully you enjoyed it.
Alrighty.
Have a good day.
(36:41):
We're out.
What you think you can do, you can probably do more.
(00:04):
We have these limits that we set on ourselves
and 99% of the time we are so wrong.
I know we all have just a little more in the tank
to get the degree, to score more goals,
to get a pay raise that we don't think we can get
within our certain business, whatever it might be.
We can do so much more.
(00:24):
I also feel like the reason why we put these limitations
on ourselves is because society also puts these limitations
on us and tell us we can or cannot do these things
because we do or do not fit this mold.
In the story, when she comes to Bonnie and was like,
hey, I want you to help me do this.
And Bonnie's like, you tried this at 28.
What makes you think that you can do this at 61 now?
(00:47):
Pointing to her brain, she says, this is what I didn't have
then, the brain, the life experience, the chutzpah,
the mental ability to really pull this off.
From a societal standpoint, people are telling her,
she's 61 years old, like you can't do this.
But she's like, no, I can.
I have something that I didn't back when I was 28.
I have so much more knowledge.
(01:08):
I have this self-belief, this mental ability
to actually pull this off, to actually do this.
And I think her recognizing that and saying that
just is a testament to the power of our minds
and what we really do put our mind to.
We can actually accomplish ourself.
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Ditto.
(01:36):
I'm Ashley Hatch, professional soccer player
for the Washington Spirit.
And I'm here with my co-host, Dr. Matt Moore.
Matt, how are you doing today?
I'm doing really well.
Yeah, at the time of this recording,
we just started school.
And so it's fun to get back after it
and get back on a college campus.
(01:57):
I'm wearing my Utah hat to support my team.
And at the time that this is gonna be released,
the college football will be underway
and campuses are just beaming again.
And I just love the energy of college campuses.
Funny story, I was walking on campus the other day
and I'm walking upstairs outside and I tripped.
(02:22):
Oh no, it's not even winter time,
you can't blame on the ice.
I'm like one of the old guys now,
like college students see on campus tripping over stairs.
And luckily I didn't feel too embarrassed
because I'm not at that stage in life anymore where I care.
Yeah, it's a good stage to be in.
Nonetheless, I got up and I'm like, oh my gosh,
my wife would have been just dying right now
(02:44):
because she thinks that's funny.
Anyways, how are you Ash?
I'm doing well, thanks for asking.
Just playing soccer all day every day,
but it's fun, our season's I guess starting up again.
We have a regular season game coming up against Kansas City
so we're preparing for that and I'm excited.
That's a big one.
(03:04):
It is a big one.
Yep, they're I think number two on the table right now,
we're number three.
I was gonna say, you're number,
you're in the top three, who's number one?
Yeah, Orlando.
Yeah, so it'll be a good match
and we haven't put them at all this season
so I'm excited, it's gonna be fun.
(03:25):
What kind of baller, who's like a baller on their team?
Who's kind of their star?
Well, they have a lot of stars,
but Chowinga is their star right now.
She scores a lot of their goals.
She's a strong, fast striker.
Cool.
So yeah, we're prepping for that and yeah, we're excited.
It'll be fun.
(03:45):
Awesome, I love it.
This is my transition into our topic today.
You ready for this transition?
Yeah, let's hear it.
Clear out of left field, here we go.
Speaking of amazing women athletes.
That was pretty good.
It was a good transition, yes.
(04:06):
Yeah, here we go.
Ashley and I wanna talk about another yet incredible story
that you could unpack from 50 million different angles.
Hopefully we can give it justice
with how we're gonna talk about it today.
It's not gonna be too long,
but again, we wanna give it the airtime,
(04:27):
if you will, that it deserves.
Incredible story.
So I came across this particular story,
this particular woman in 2000, I think it was 15 or 16.
She was speaking at a conference
that I was at, a sports psychology conference.
And this woman's name is Diana Nyad, N-Y-A-D.
(04:52):
And her story just blew me away.
I had no idea she even existed or what her story was
until she was speaking at this conference
and she was such an incredible public speaker,
motivational speaker, I was like, oh my gosh,
who is this person?
So Diana Nyad, to sum it up, is a long distance swimmer.
When I say long distance,
you long distance swimmers out there
(05:14):
probably have to correct me,
but it's usually in the ocean.
They don't just swim in a pool back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth.
That's reserved for the Katie Ledecky's of the world.
These people go miles in the ocean,
whether it's around an island or from one island
to another island or around a bay,
or in Diana's case, she went from Florida to Cuba.
(05:37):
And then she has a movie on Netflix.
She has one that's like a dramatization of her story
and then an actual kind of documentary
somewhere out there as well.
I read her book and it was phenomenal.
The book's called Find A Way by Diana Nyad.
And again, incredible story.
Before I get into kind of the weeds of what she did
(06:00):
and why she is such an incredible athlete,
I just want to say that I think she's a great actress
and incredible athlete.
What do you know about her, Ash?
I mean, do you know of her story?
When did you come across her story, et cetera?
Yeah, we actually watched her,
the newest Netflix movie about her
(06:21):
for our like team movie slash theme for the year.
So we watched it in pre-season
and I had never heard of her or her story
or her accomplishment until that story,
until we watched, sat down and watched it as a team.
And it was really cool just to see her journey play out
and it was pretty remarkable.
But yeah, so I just know her from this year.
(06:45):
And that, it was on Netflix, right?
Is what you're talking about?
Yeah.
Do you remember the name of it?
I think it's just Nyad, but I could be wrong.
It's called Nyad, I think you're right.
Yeah, I think so too.
Okay, awesome.
I highly recommend to everybody to go watch the documentary,
the movie, and in my opinion,
(07:06):
I think the book is even better.
The book, like most books, it just goes into more detail.
And if you even are on a remote liking schedule
as it pertains to reading, I think you'll love it.
It's a really easy read and truly inspiring.
And so let me tell the audience why is she so inspiring?
Long distance swimmer, et cetera.
(07:26):
She's the first person slash woman to only,
I think she still is to date,
the only person to swim from the Florida Keys to Cuba.
Yes, across the ocean.
And she did this in 2013.
(07:47):
She not only did this as an incredible athlete,
but as an incredible older woman.
She was 63 years old when she did this.
For those of you that are thinking like,
wow, Florida to Cuba, it's pretty close,
but it's not that close.
How far is it?
It was 103 miles of continuously swimming across the ocean.
(08:13):
The pursuit took her in just under 60 hours,
I think it was 59 hours something something,
to swim the length.
She didn't just do it in 2013 and bam, she was good to go.
It had taken her years like the Alex Honnold story
to try to attempt and try to prepare for this.
(08:33):
And in fact, she attempted this swim four different times
before she was actually successful on her fifth,
which was in 2013.
Just incredible.
And then doing it in 60 hours.
So obviously that pertains to doing it in the daylight
and at nighttime.
(08:53):
I can't imagine being in the middle of the ocean
and nighttime swimming just freely.
She had an entire team with her.
So she had people in boats.
I think it was plural, not just one boat.
It might've been just one boat.
Anyway, she had a team with her.
Do you remember?
In the movie it's just one boat,
but when I did some research,
(09:15):
it said that her successful journey,
she had a 35 person team with her.
So like in the movie, who knows how accurate it is?
I'm sure parts of it are really accurate,
but with each attempt, her team got bigger and bigger
because she realized she needed more help
for different reasons.
And she brought in different expertise
(09:37):
for different things.
And so I feel like as she kept going on
throughout her journey,
her team kind of just kept growing and growing.
Yeah, okay.
So with that in mind, so we can paint a picture of this,
she's swimming and then the team's not allowed
to touch her or assist her physically in any way.
Otherwise she was disqualified
and she had to start over and it didn't count.
(09:58):
So she's all by herself just in the ocean swimming.
And for those of you that can't see,
I'm swimming right now.
Her team in the boat would make sure she's doing okay.
So she would do like vital checks, med checks every so often.
I think it was about every 90 minutes.
In addition, they would like feed her like a dog
from the boat.
(10:19):
Like she would land her back and people in the boat,
her team would kind of throw things in her mouth,
like globs of peanut butter and pasta,
and of course water and other things
to keep her going physically.
They were also in the water around her,
again, not touching her because they couldn't touch her.
There were shark divers on each side of her,
(10:41):
part of this navigational team
and doctors and weather experts, et cetera.
And so these shark divers would send out, I think,
like these electrical underwater beams
that were supposed to be a deterrent for sharks.
It wasn't a complete like in a cage.
She actually attempted that like on her first or second try,
(11:03):
but she didn't like being in a cage like that
and it felt weird.
And so she said, let's just get rid of the cage
on this fifth try.
And these shark divers had these kind of beams
to try to deter any interested sharks.
If the sharks were really interested,
they would have for sure gotten her
because they wouldn't have deterred them that much.
And then in addition, some of these divers provided
(11:25):
kind of this light stream at night,
especially for her to follow.
Because as you can imagine,
you can become very disoriented in the ocean,
especially when you're the one swimming
and you're not in a boat.
And then at night, and then in addition to the waves
that inevitably are going to push you off course,
you can kind of follow back on this light beam
(11:46):
or this light stream.
As you can imagine, just that alone would be
uncountable like problems, challenges, hurdles.
Some of them, just some, where it was the weather.
So she encountered thunderstorms, waves.
There's the Gulf Stream that where she was
(12:08):
from Cuba to Florida.
And so it would push her off course
the three or four times preceding
the fifth successful attempt.
That happened.
I think she got off course so much
on the third or fourth attempt
that it was just way too much to her,
for her physically to be able to attempt
to get back on course.
(12:28):
And then the water was cold.
And so she's swimming with this wet suit on,
trying to stay semi warm,
but hypothermia is definitely a part of the equation.
She got nauseous because of the waves
and the disorientation and the extreme fatigue.
So she's like throwing up some,
(12:48):
if not most of the food and the water
that she's trying to keep down
to try to sustain her body.
And then I've mentioned sharks.
One huge thing that,
I just can't imagine doing this,
that she encountered along the way were jellyfish,
especially box jellyfish.
(13:09):
So on her second or third attempt,
I forget the attempts,
but one of the reasons she had to quit
is she got stung by a box jellyfish.
And for those that don't know much
about box jellyfish like me,
they hurt really, really, really bad when you get stung.
And they can for sure kill you.
A lot of people that get stung by box jellyfish
(13:30):
die because of the poison and the inflammation
and what happens physiologically to a person
when they're stung by these type of creatures.
And she almost died.
She was almost killed by a box jellyfish.
And so once again, it was another deterrent
to try to avoid and figure out on her way
(13:51):
to the successful attempt that was the fifth.
Anyways, with all that in mind, Ashley,
what's going through your mind
when you see this human being attempting such a feat?
Incredible, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think it's really inspiring.
(14:13):
Like you said, if you look at her timeline,
her very first attempt, like you said, in 1978
was when she was only 28 years old.
And she had to stop because of strong winds.
They were pushing her off course.
And then like you said, at 61 years old,
she decided to try it again.
So she had an attempt in August 8th in 2011.
(14:37):
And then another attempt, September 25th, 2011.
That was the attempt where she got stung by,
I think our box jellyfish and man-of-war the same thing.
Because when I Googled it, it said man-of-war.
I think so, but I'm not like too competent
as it pertains to my same features.
So that was the one that she had to stop
(14:58):
because she had two stings.
And that was like, if she had gotten one more,
I think it would have been very detrimental to her health.
Yeah, I know.
And then in August 21st, 2012, she was only 50 miles out,
but her crew pulled her because of all the things
that you said, storms, jellyfish, sunburn,
(15:21):
being exposed to all of the elements.
The movie does a really good job of just showing
how physically, mentally, and emotionally
taxing this is, not only on her, but on her team.
And I think one thing that I loved about the movie
is how her relationship with her team members.
(15:43):
Totally.
She really had to sell them on this dream
and this goal of hers.
And once they were bought in, they were bought in,
and it was really cool to see them do their very best
to help her succeed and achieve this dream of hers.
But there is a part in this story, I'm assuming it was
(16:03):
after her probably fourth attempt when her crew pulled her,
she was really upset, but they were like,
we're trying to make sure you live.
We don't want you to die doing this.
And so they kind of had a breaking off.
This is in the movie, so I don't know how accurate
this is, correct me if I'm wrong.
But they kind of had a falling out,
(16:25):
and it was really hard for her,
it was really hard for her team,
but she was able to kind of like,
swallow her pride a little bit, go back to her team,
and say, you know what, like, I'm really sorry,
this isn't just about me, this is about you guys as well,
and I cannot do this without you.
And that was such a powerful moment in the movie,
because it's true, like, she would not have been able
(16:47):
to do this without them.
And then August 31st, she attempted her fifth attempt
where she finished on September 2nd,
her successful journey across the Florida Strait.
And like I said earlier, she had a 35 person team,
so I would imagine that team just continued to grow.
But I think the reason why it grew is because they all
(17:08):
bought into this vision, they all believed in her.
And I think her resilience, just her persistence,
like her perseverance, I don't know,
it's pretty fascinating.
And a question that I have for you, Matt,
in terms of kind of just like the psychological side of it,
most people aren't willing to do things this extreme
(17:32):
at that age.
We learn like in our human adolescent development classes
growing up that like, we do stupid things when we're younger
because our brain's not fully developed, right?
Or we're more willing to kind of put ourselves
in dangerous situations when we're younger.
But in Diana's case, she did the opposite.
(17:55):
She attempted when she was younger and she wasn't successful
but then when she reached the age of 61,
she was like, actually, I think I can do this.
And so in your opinion, like why do you think
she was able to then decide at age 61
that she could accomplish this amazing feat
(18:18):
that no one else has ever accomplished?
Yeah, yeah, there's so much to unpack.
I'm gonna give my opinion,
but I think somehow we need to get her on the podcast
in a future episode because she would be amazing
to ask her that herself and to hear it from her own mouth.
(18:39):
And reading her book and hearing her speak
at a conference in person and watching these documentaries,
there were like four major takeaways for me.
You mentioned most of them
and I think it's gonna answer your question.
Number one and first and foremost for me
and it's essentially the subtitle of her book,
Finding a Way, she had a powerful, clear vision.
(19:04):
She wanted to do this thing and she figured out
over the course of 30 years, 35 years, longer, 40 years,
something like that, how to do it.
And she brought in all these pieces,
she brought in all these people literally
to assist her with this vision of her,
(19:26):
with this goal of hers.
The second for me is, you mentioned it,
is this unyielding resilience.
I think resilience is a muscle
and it needs to be exercised, it needs to be strengthened
and for some reason at 61, maybe intuitively she thought,
(19:47):
all right, I think I have enough years under my belt
where I can actually do this now.
Most 60 plus year olds are on the opposite end
of the spectrum where they go,
I think I'm gonna ease off on life now
and actually retire, literally retire
from what I'm doing most of my life.
But for her it was like this shift of,
I have gained all this knowledge,
(20:08):
all this experience, I've met all these amazing people,
I think I'm now ready to do this
and I need to get my body into shape to be able to do that.
And I think a lot of people, especially in,
at least in the United States, at that age,
don't recognize that you can still be in physiologically
(20:30):
in really great shape.
It's at times, and this is for all of us,
not only for me, but for all of you,
all of us, not only at that age,
getting your mind to agree with the body
and vice versa, getting your body to agree with the mind.
And so her unyielding resilience for me was enormous
(20:51):
to be able to attempt it.
And then when you're in the actual attempts,
I mean, she did this five different times
and encountered weather and sharks and box jellyfish
and nausea and fatigue and all this stuff.
Again, my definition, adversity plus positive adaptation
equals resilience, and that's what she would do.
She would encounter these challenges, this adversity,
(21:14):
and then adapt, and then a small tweak and adaption,
and then another adaption, and then another adaption,
until ultimately she finds success.
And then you mentioned as well, Ash,
she was able to redefine age and limits.
I mean, these stories like Alex Honnold
and Diana Nyad, for so many reasons are so interesting,
(21:37):
but I think one of the overarching reasons
why we're so attracted to this is it's redefining
what we can do as human beings.
And in her case, it's redefining
what we can do as human beings,
but also what we can do at certain ages,
age, you know, on the age spectrum, so to speak.
And so for all of us, it's, at least for me,
(21:57):
I think it's a clear display of what you think you can do,
you can probably do more.
Like we have these limits that we set on ourselves,
especially psychologically, and 99% of the time
we are so wrong.
(22:18):
We can do so much more, whether it's 60% more,
10% more, 30% more, I don't know what that is,
but I know we all have just a little more in the tank
to get the degree that we don't think
we can actually accomplish, to score more goals
that we don't think we can score,
(22:38):
to get a pay raise that we don't think we can get
within our certain business, whatever it might be,
or swim from Florida to Cuba.
It's just astounding to me.
And then, you know, on top of all that, Ash,
like it's, once you're in the moment, psychologically,
what do you do?
(22:58):
Like how do you stay present?
How do you continue to revisit this muscle
and strengthening of a resiliency,
and continue to push and push and push until you reach
the shores of Cuba, literally and figuratively?
She did a number of things.
So she specifically and deliberately trained her mind,
(23:21):
especially in and around meditation and mindfulness,
so that when, not if, inevitably, psychologically,
she was waning and thinking about things
that weren't effective or efficacious in those moments,
that she could do something in those moments
to bring herself back and continue to swim one arm,
(23:43):
one leg kick after the other, after the other, for 60 hours.
So some of the things that she did,
I don't know if it went over in this particular movie,
but probably did, is she sang songs.
So it talked about in the book how she memorized
and sang over 80 plus different songs.
So in training for these attempts,
(24:04):
and especially the fifth one, she had memorized,
she had all these songs in her memorization
that she would turn to, and she would sing them,
and she would sing them and sing them and sing them.
And then in addition, when she got tired
of singing some of these songs, here's these mind tricks,
and they're so effective when we are good at it.
(24:25):
Instead of singing, she would also count.
So she would count in Spanish, in English, and in French.
And it said that she would count up to 200
in these languages and then try to count back down
in all three of these different languages.
And so she was singing songs,
she was counting in different languages,
and then occasionally having kind of conversations
(24:46):
when she could, not always because her face
is in the water, with her team,
and finding ways to just stay present
and to continue to strengthen this present awareness
muscle of resiliency and do what she needed to do.
So those are a number of thoughts that come to my mind
(25:07):
in terms of major takeaways from this incredible story.
Yeah, no, that's fascinating.
I think back to what you were talking about earlier
of kind of these limitations that we put on ourselves.
I also feel like the reason why we put these limitations
on ourselves is because society also puts
these limitations on us, whether it's age, gender,
(25:29):
whether you have a degree or not, social status,
just income, whatever it is, society tends to put
these limitations on us and tell us we can or cannot
do these things because we do or do not fit this mold.
And in the story, her best friend Bonnie,
when she comes to Bonnie, was like,
(25:51):
hey, I want you to help me do this.
And Bonnie's like, you tried this at 28,
what makes you think that you can do this at 61 now?
And she said exactly kind of what you were talking about,
Matt, it was her mind.
And I'm gonna butcher this quote because there's a word
in it that I have no idea how to pronounce.
(26:12):
H-U-T-Z-P-A, do you know what that word is?
H-U-T-Z-P-A?
Google says to, Google says,
Hutzpah.
Hutzpah.
Hutzpah.
It means extreme self-confidence or audacity.
Yeah, okay, I've heard of that.
So anyway, I'm gonna give you the quote, Hutzpah.
(26:37):
Anyway, so her friend asked her like,
what makes you think you can do this?
And she says, pointing to her brain, she says,
this is what I didn't have then, the brain,
the life experience, the Hutzpah, the ability,
the mental ability to really pull this off.
And I think that's so cool because, you know,
we may, from a societal standpoint,
(27:03):
people are telling her she's 61 years old,
like you can't do this, but she's like, no, I can.
I have something that I didn't back when I was 28,
I have so much more knowledge, I have this self-belief,
this mental ability to actually pull this off,
to actually do this.
And I think her recognizing that and saying that
(27:23):
just is a testament to the power of our minds
and what we really do put our mind to,
we can actually accomplish ourselves.
And so yeah, I think that quote goes perfectly,
aligns perfectly with what you were saying
and why she was able to pull this off.
And I just, I think it's just very admirable
(27:45):
that she was willing to tell people like, no, you're wrong.
Like, I can do this.
And that probably has also fueled her purpose
a little bit too, because so many people
were telling her that she couldn't.
Sometimes that can also be super powerful.
But yeah, I think it's just really inspiring.
(28:05):
Totally.
It's funny, I just shared a post on LinkedIn
a week or so ago that it relates to this beautifully.
And I wanna invite you, Ashley,
while I'm telling this story,
to think of an experience in your own life
that you can share.
So I know I briefly alluded to this on this podcast before,
(28:26):
and I'm gonna share my post, what I did on LinkedIn,
with you all here.
So hopefully not everybody follows me on LinkedIn,
so this is regurgitating information.
Again, when I was a student, I was a master's student,
I've never been the academic type.
I've never been the straight-A guy
sitting in front of the classroom.
In fact, I remember being in my doctoral program
(28:48):
and the teacher at the front was talking about this,
and he goes, most of you doctoral students here
have been straight-A students,
and school's kind of been your thing up until now.
And I raise my hand and I go, not me,
I've never been that person and I never will be.
Anyways, when I was a master's student,
I came and confided in an advisor,
(29:09):
and I let them know, or I talked to them
about wanting to pursue a PhD.
And their response was, I just don't know
if you're a PhD student, or I don't know
if you're a PhD type, or the materialistic type of student
that needs to happen for you to get into programs.
And I'm like, wow, okay, there's a shot
(29:30):
to my self-confidence, yeah.
But I went to pursue my PhD, I got a PhD, and I did it.
And it wasn't to be like, ha ha, sucker, look what I did,
and I sent them a picture of me holding up my degree,
which would have been kind of funny.
And it wasn't because I was particularly smart,
(29:50):
it was because I knew deep down
that I could do something hard.
I had never been the type of student, again,
to go get a PhD, and still to this day,
when I tell friends what I do for a living,
and I have a PhD, sometimes I go, really?
You did that?
Like, I knew you from high school,
and you were just the opposite.
(30:12):
Anyways, moral of the story,
similar to Diane and I's experience,
is I knew that I could do something hard.
At that point in my life, for some reason,
in my mind, it was, okay, I can do this
because I can do hard things, and I'm gonna pursue this,
and I'm gonna accomplish this.
Similar to that experience.
So here's my question for you, Ash.
(30:33):
Have you had anything similar happen in your life
in terms of maybe you not believing in you,
and then you go and do something to prove yourself wrong,
or just to get it done, or maybe like me,
or maybe even like Diana, other people have said,
no, no, no, you can't do this.
You're not good enough, or you're not old enough,
(30:54):
or you're too young, or whatever it might be.
And then what happened?
Have you had those type of experiences,
big or small, in your life?
Oh, yeah, so many.
I feel like especially in the sports world,
when you just have everyone's opinions,
whether it's coaches, or parents, or other players.
One that does come to mind as you were sharing yours,
(31:14):
when I was probably around 12 or 13,
we actually lived in St. George, Utah at the time.
So I grew up in Southern California, but in middle school,
we moved to St. George, Utah for like a year and a half,
and then we moved to Arizona,
where I finished out middle school,
and the rest of high school.
(31:34):
And because we were from Southern California,
there was a trainer there that my dad would,
anytime we were visiting,
he would take us there to train with him.
He was really good.
He had trained like a lot of pros.
He was a pro himself.
And it was just really good training sessions,
and I really enjoyed it.
I learned a lot.
It was kind of scary and intimidating,
(31:54):
because he expected the best.
And so if he messed up, you would hear about it.
But I think we paid for like six sessions,
and when we had moved, we wanted to finish them.
So we came back,
and we did our last two or three, or whatever it was.
And then afterwards, I was getting in the car,
and my dad was having a conversation with the coach,
and kind of just like asking him what he thought
(32:16):
about me as a player, my skill level, my potential,
all the stuff that parents always wanna hear
about their child.
And I remember my dad, I came back in the car,
and he didn't say anything,
and I kind of like pried, and I was like,
hey, so like, what were you guys talking about?
And I could tell he didn't really wanna tell me.
And then he finally was like,
(32:38):
all right, I didn't really wanna tell you,
because I didn't want it to ruin your confidence
or anything, but he said you're a good player,
but not a great player.
And I was just kinda like, all right,
what does that even mean?
I don't know.
And I just remember having a conversation with my dad,
and he was just like, well, use it as motivation
(33:00):
to become a great player.
And from that moment on, I kind of just used it
as motivation.
And we would joke sometimes when I'd have
a really good game and score a bunch of goals,
or actually do something really successful,
like, oh, but you're a good player, not a great player.
That's awesome.
So that was one moment, I feel like early on,
where I got feedback that maybe wasn't
(33:24):
all sunshine and rainbows, but I definitely used it
as motivation to continue to improve.
And also, I wasn't gonna let one person's opinion
derail me from my goals and my dreams and my aspirations.
So yeah, that's one story that comes to mind.
It's amazing when we are actually able
to not let other people's opinions about us
(33:47):
define our potential.
Like, you gotta believe in yourself.
And if you don't, start to.
Start to find little ways to believe
that you're capable of performing X, Y, Z.
Little baby steps towards something
(34:07):
that ultimately maybe can be bigger.
With all these stories to say,
and especially Diana's story, again,
don't limit yourself, because we do it
way too often as human beings.
It's important to change our relationship
with how we relate with ourselves,
(34:30):
and how we believe in ourselves.
It's a topic that I consistently have
with athletes, coaches, students, et cetera,
in my professional life.
It's self-confidence and self-doubt.
We limit ourselves, especially psychologically.
If we can change that, not get rid of it,
because we're always gonna have self-doubt.
(34:52):
We're human beings.
But just change how we relate to it.
It's gonna make such a world of difference.
And you'll be able to have the Florida to Cuba swims
in your life, whatever those might look like.
And so hopefully it's an inspiring story
for you all that are listening.
(35:13):
I highly, highly encourage you to, yes,
go watch the documentaries or the movies,
but also to read her book, Find A Way by Diana Nyad.
I promise it'll be well worth your time.
You probably won't put down the book just like me.
And she probably has a bunch of speeches on YouTube as well
that you can go look up.
(35:34):
That's kind of my thoughts.
And I'm hoping that everyone listening
will find interest and passion and motivation behind it.
Yeah, yeah.
I think I wanna close it out with what she told reporters
after she had finished her swim.
She said, I have three messages.
One is we should never, ever give up.
(35:57):
Two is you're never too old to chase your dreams.
And three is it looks like a solitary sport,
but it's a team.
And I feel like those are really good life messages
to kind of just live by.
And I think it's really cool that she was able
to embody all of those lessons throughout her journey
(36:20):
and then share that with the world.
So anyway, thanks.
Thanks for your thoughts on the story
and go look into Diana Nyad.
Yes, like, share, love, well, whatever this episode
and then go look up her story, everybody.
Hopefully you enjoyed it.
Alrighty.
Have a good day.
(36:41):
We're out.
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