Today’s is a guest who I count as one of my favourite speakers of all time who I was lucky enough to hear from on Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island during our incredible trip with Business Chicks. I have been hoping to share her infectious enthusiasm, energetic storytelling and MIND-BLOWING story since that moment two years ago and am SO excited to finally share her with you now.

It's probably no surprise that Diana Nyad ended up as a marathon swimmer given that her surname means water nymph in Greek mythology (which I know because it was the name of one of my high school houses). With many achievements in competitive swimming over her lifetime, it was an idea that hit her at 9 years old to swim from Cuba to Florida that never left her. Starting from 2010, Diana began the journey to swim of over 50 hours through freezing, shark and jellyfish infested waters making not one but FIVE attempts before successfully covering the 180km and get this… at 64 YEARS OLD. As Hilary Clinton puts it perfectly, when you’re facing big challenges in your life you can think about Diana and nearly anything else seems doable by comparison.

Before we jump in, I just wanted to throw a very big shout out to Emma Isaacs and the Business Chicks team again for continually creating invaluable, unforgettable experiences for so many of us and making some of the world’s most fascinating and inspiring people accessible like Diana to its members. If you aren’t already a member, I can’t recommend anything more highly for seizing your yay so SIGN UP HERE. I hope you are as invigorated by this one as I am and please excuse a bit scratchier audio than usual – the tech woes got us good but in true Diana fashion we pressed on.

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