“Belief is literally the single most important thing to achieving anything.”
Danica Patrick, the most successful female racing car driver in history, began her journey by learning to drive a lawnmower. Yes, a lawnmower. Flat-out. You’ve got to start somewhere, right?!
At age 10, she began go-karting. The love was instant and from that moment she knew she wanted to be a racing car driver. Some may assume she was a natural, but Patrick had to fight to keep up. She failed a lot but kept persevering, bouncing back from those failures, determined to improve.
Through her teenage years she honed her skills and finally it began to pay off. She was winning; and winning a lot. So then came the big move. The move that solidified her commitment to the sport. Patrick left school and moved to England to focus on her career. She was in no doubt she had to make it work and was ready to sacrifice everything to do so. Her unwavering dedication to her craft was strong.
Patrick went on to make history by finishing first place in the 2008 Indy Japan 300 – the only IndyCar series win by a woman. In 2013, she became the first woman to win a NASCAR Cup Series pole position. These trailblazing achievements shattered gender stereotypes and inspired countless individuals around the globe.
Patrick’s message is to love what you do. Love it enough that when the going gets tough you keep going. Be prepared to make sacrifices. But most importantly believe in yourself. Patrick failed at the beginning, but she persevered, she learnt from her mistakes, and was determined to get better because she believed she could be.
So, focus on the journey. The progress, not the end result; and you too could make history.
Danica Patrick – video transcript
I was going 240 miles an hour with walls and wheels around me. It was a little crazy.
When I was a kid, my parents always let my sister and I try everything. We did coach, pitch, T-ball, volleyball, basketball, cheerleading, tumbling, choir, band, and racing was one of them.
The first thing I remember driving was a lawnmower and it had gears, and I would just go through the gears and be flat out on that lawnmower. And then, my dad got us four wheelers for Christmas. So then we became totally hated by the neighbourhood because we'd just full throttle, 'waaaaaah' all the way around the neighbourhood. We made ruts and tracks in the yard.
When I was 10 years old, I wanted to be a race car driver, and I wanted to win the Indy 500, and I wanted to be an engineer so I could learn how to work on my race car. When I started go-karting at 10, it was just totally local. It was just a local track. I couldn't even keep up on the parade laps. And the parade laps are where you go around the little oval area real slow, slow as you possibly... It's like really slow. So that was how much I failed at the beginning.
It just started locally, but then I started winning halfway through the season. And then from there, my dad would tell me later on that he was testing and pushing me to see could I go to the next level and compete and be good.
At 14, I had won a lot and I feel like that year, I might have won like 36 out of 48 features or something like that. So fast forward now a couple years and I'm old enough to now drive a car. I went full-time. So I left high school halfway through my junior year. I moved to England and got going on the career. But I will say at that point in time, I did know that it was like the rubber hits the road here and that I needed to make it work because I just left high school. I just left school, I better make this work.
It was a progression. Go-karts maybe went 80 miles an hour and then cars 150 miles an hour. And then you go up to the next level of car and it's now all of a sudden, you're going almost 200. And so then, you're going 240. And so, it's not like I just all of a sudden went from a go-kart to an IndyCar and went from 80 to 240. There's a progression. I mean, there were definitely times where I questioned, was I good enough? You have to learn how to push through those moments.
When I won in Japan and became the first woman to win an IndyCar, I was truly relieved. It had been a long road and finally got there.
To be great at anything, you have to really sacrifice everything. You have to find something that you love enough and that you want enough, that you don't care that you miss the prom and never went. You can't care that you miss holidays and events and parties and experiences because you're gaining other ones.
So the two most important things to accomplishing anything you want is, number one, you have to find something that you actually love because when it gets hard, you need to love it enough to keep going. And then number two is you have to truly believe with your whole being and feel that you're going to do it. Belief is literally the single most important thing to achieving anything in my opinion. And the point of it is you can always do better.
The critical element to getting better is fixating on the journey and fixating on the progress instead of the end result. If you want to create a new paradigm, then you just start a new one, don't try and fix the old one. Start a new one.
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Danica Patrick became the most successful female racing car driver in history.
Her first place finish in the 2008 Indy Japan 300 is the only IndyCar Series win by a woman. In 2013 she successfully transitioned to NASCAR where she became the first woman to win a NASCAR Cup Series pole position.
She was recognised by Time Magazine as one of the world’s most influential people, and remains the only woman to have led both an IndyCar and NASCAR race.
