Danica Patrick’s Comeback Story - The Importance of Mindset, Goals, and Self-Love

05/13/21 • 58 min

Danica Patrick, one of the most successful and recognized female racers in the world, shares her story of what she learned during her career, on and off the track. Learn about why a growth mindset was key to Danica’s success growing up as a racer, the vital importance of setting lofty goals, and why self-love is the best foundation for real relationships in life.

Danica is one of the most successful and recognized female racers, having been the first female to lead the Indy 500, the first female to win the Poll position in the Daytona 500, and won the Indy Japan. No other female has come close to what Danica has achieved in her racing career.
Danica grew up in Illinois and life was very normal, but she admits that she hasn’t experienced anything else so most people will think their childhood is pretty “normal”.
She began racing at the age of 10 so being competitive was a source of struggle and conflict with her father, but Danica doesn’t have many specific memories from her childhood.
Danica’s first real teacher was her father. She doesn’t recall having any role models in particular. One of the first lessons she learned from her father was that wherever your eyes are, that’s the direction you will go. This has become a metaphor that Danica has taken to heart.
Danica is a future thinker and gets very attached to outcomes. This makes her willing to work through the pain when she sets a goal so that she can achieve it.
Professionally, one of Danica’s lowest points was when her sponsor left in 2017. She had to face the possibility of being done racing and how that was going to change her life. Personally, she’s dealt with a lot more sadness in grief in her relationships.
Danica realized that the times where she happiest were when she was performing her best, and that when she was happier she also performed better. Recognizing the dynamic of her own joy and how her well-being affected her performance was a big realization.
If people grow up in a household that only rewards success they tend to refrain from taking on new challenges because of their fear of failure. A growth mindset is critical for every aspect of life.
Home is a state of being. It’s inside you and you carry it with you. As a culture, once we wrap our head around how powerful the mind is there will be some drastic shifts in the world.
So much of who we are is hidden in the subconscious mind. Once you recognize that everything in your reality is there to show you who you are, it becomes informational. We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.
The body follows the mind. When it comes to football or racing, success is 90% mental and 10% physical. The fear of failure is more impactful than the physical skills of the body. Belief in yourself carries an immense amount of weight of the end result.
If you set your goal to be ambitious and lofty, the halfway point will still involve achieving great things. If you make your goals small you end up selling your potential short.
Small incremental goals along the way will keep you motivated and give you perspective on the progress you’re making. Compliment your lofty goal with smaller goals along the path.
To set the proper goals for yourself, you need to know who you are and what your values are.
Boundaries are not about placing limitations on other people, it’s about what you will and won’t allow into your space. Being able to say no from a place of love is a very important life skill or you can find yourself giving away your energy to people and things that don’t resonate with you. Without boundaries, there is no way to really know who someone is.
Values are the bedrock of who we are, and we teach people how to treat us.
Knowing who you really are is hard. Work, life, kids, activities and other people make it very difficult to get to know who you are. You need time alone to figure those things out, and once you know who you are you know what you are willing to put up with and be around.
Change is not part of the process, it is the process.
The ego is impatient because it knows its time is limited but the soul is patient because it knows that it has forever.
The more you love yourself the more other people can love you. Without that self-love, you won’t be able to accept the love of someone else because you won’t believe that it’s true.
Accountability is one of the most important dynamics in personal and professional relationships. Danica’s most grateful for being accountable because it empowers her to shape the direction of her life. Without accountability you won’t follow through and will end up with more of what you don’t want.
If you can recognize in yourself that you are stuck against a roadblock you are already most of the way there. People often walk through life passively and ca...

Danica is one of the most successful and recognized female racers, having been the first female to lead the Indy 500, the first female to win the Poll position in the Daytona 500, and won the Indy Japan. No other female has come close to what Danica has achieved in her racing career.
Danica grew up in Illinois and life was very normal, but she admits that she hasn’t experienced anything else so most people will think their childhood is pretty “normal”.
She began racing at the age of 10 so being competitive was a source of struggle and conflict with her father, but Danica doesn’t have many specific memories from her childhood.
Danica’s first real teacher was her father. She doesn’t recall having any role models in particular. One of the first lessons she learned from her father was that wherever your eyes are, that’s the direction you will go. This has become a metaphor that Danica has taken to heart.
Danica is a future thinker and gets very attached to outcomes. This makes her willing to work through the pain when she sets a goal so that she can achieve it.
Professionally, one of Danica’s lowest points was when her sponsor left in 2017. She had to face the possibility of being done racing and how that was going to change her life. Personally, she’s dealt with a lot more sadness in grief in her relationships.
Danica realized that the times where she happiest were when she was performing her best, and that when she was happier she also performed better. Recognizing the dynamic of her own joy and how her well-being affected her performance was a big realization.
If people grow up in a household that only rewards success they tend to refrain from taking on new challenges because of their fear of failure. A growth mindset is critical for every aspect of life.
Home is a state of being. It’s inside you and you carry it with you. As a culture, once we wrap our head around how powerful the mind is there will be some drastic shifts in the world.
So much of who we are is hidden in the subconscious mind. Once you recognize that everything in your reality is there to show you who you are, it becomes informational. We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.
The body follows the mind. When it comes to football or racing, success is 90% mental and 10% physical. The fear of failure is more impactful than the physical skills of the body. Belief in yourself carries an immense amount of weight of the end result.
If you set your goal to be ambitious and lofty, the halfway point will still involve achieving great things. If you make your goals small you end up selling your potential short.
Small incremental goals along the way will keep you motivated and give you perspective on the progress you’re making. Compliment your lofty goal with smaller goals along the path.
To set the proper goals for yourself, you need to know who you are and what your values are.
Boundaries are not about placing limitations on other people, it’s about what you will and won’t allow into your space. Being able to say no from a place of love is a very important life skill or you can find yourself giving away your energy to people and things that don’t resonate with you. Without boundaries, there is no way to really know who someone is.
Values are the bedrock of who we are, and we teach people how to treat us.
Knowing who you really are is hard. Work, life, kids, activities and other people make it very difficult to get to know who you are. You need time alone to figure those things out, and once you know who you are you know what you are willing to put up with and be around.
Change is not part of the process, it is the process.
The ego is impatient because it knows its time is limited but the soul is patient because it knows that it has forever.
The more you love yourself the more other people can love you. Without that self-love, you won’t be able to accept the love of someone else because you won’t believe that it’s true.
Accountability is one of the most important dynamics in personal and professional relationships. Danica’s most grateful for being accountable because it empowers her to shape the direction of her life. Without accountability you won’t follow through and will end up with more of what you don’t want.
If you can recognize in yourself that you are stuck against a roadblock you are already most of the way there. People often walk through life passively and ca...

Previous Episode

Mike Bayer’s Comeback Story - Relentless Honesty, Awareness, and Asking For The Right Kind of Help

Mike Bayer shares his story of growing up and struggling with his sexuality, and tells how that pain led to a meth addiction that almost destroyed his life. Learn how Mike realized the source of his pain and how he turned his story into a platform for helping thousands of people overcome their addictions and live more fulfilling lives.

The theme of any great change is relentless honesty.
Everyone has a different upbringing and we all have a different relationship with our upbringing. Mike grew up playing basketball and from the outside it looked like everything was going well but he never felt okay with his life. He started doing drugs at a young age largely due in part to being gay but being unable to admit it.
Shame is a cloak of toxicity that eventually seeps into all areas of your life. Growing up was only okay when Mike was stoned, and doing drugs became a slippery slope into misery and addiction.
For athletes, teachers are usually coaches. Mike didn’t have any great mentors when it came to athletics. It wasn’t until Mike’s parents sent him to therapy when he was younger where he felt comfortable enough to admit to someone that he was gay.
The issue wasn’t so much that Mike was gay and accepting that, it was an issue of not feeling good enough to be accepted by his peers. Therapy is what allowed him to connect the dots and identify where the pain was coming from.
Therapy is like physical exercise. When you want to get deeper into why you feel a particular way, therapy is a way to put in the work.
Mike’s low point was simple. After suffering for months from a brutal meth addiction, he looked in the mirror and realized that he was sick and tired of being a loser. He had no purpose and was on a downward trajectory that wasn’t going to change unless he changed it.
Mike shares the story of his sugar momma and the crazy experiences he had when he was under the influence.
Awareness is the key to change. When it comes to hitting bottom, you can always go a little deeper. Mike found himself going back to drugs the day after he would throw them away in the effort to quit. Mike’s awareness and realization was that he was not the man he was supposed to be.
We have to own our lives and take ownership for where we are right now and the actions we took to get us here.
Mike got sober at 22 and he never thought he would be a person who could help other people to do the same thing. After being six months sober, Mike started working in treatment while also working other side jobs and did whatever he could to get into the field of counseling. He went from being a counselor to doing interventions and the work continued to evolve.
According to Mike, an attitude of gratitude keeps away the bad attitude. Mike is incredibly grateful for the life that he has today because he never thought that his life would be the way it is now.
If Mike could send a message to his younger self, he would essentially tell himself that a person has to make a choice to be better and to always stay coachable. If you’re going to be a coach you have to be able to listen. People aren’t going to remember what you say to them, they are going to remember how you made them feel.
Donny and Darren tell the origin story of the Comeback Stories podcast and how their friendship developed.
Asking for help is a transaction. If you ask for help, you have to be willing to do what it takes when you receive that help.
Mike uses the SPHERES acronym to help identify which area of a person’s life needs work and what type of help they should be asking for. To use it, you need to rate your Social Life, Personal, Health, Employment, Relationships, Education, and Spiritual Development.
We all have blind spots and assessments are a great way to figure out the root cause of an issue.
Knowing your purpose helps you eliminate confusion. If you’re not sure in the moment, look for your purpose and redefine it if you have to.
Everything is one decision away from what we want. Most of the decisions we make each day are made on autopilot but there are also decisions that we can control that can significantly improve our lives. There is usually a single decision you can make everyday that can change things for the better.
Life is better when we show up being who we truly are. That way we don’t second guess who we are and are just content in the moment.
Mike’s comeback shoutout goes to his first sponsor Mark Hertz.

Mentioned in this Episode:

coachmikebayer.com

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Next Episode

Accept and Advance

There’s is no comeback without awareness. We must accept who we are, where we are, and what we’ve done without being paralyzed by the weight of the truth. Honesty is uncomfortable in the beginning, but freedom is impossible without it. Don’t lose hope! You will be better for going straight through the pain rather than finding a way to avoid it.

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Comeback Stories - Danica Patrick’s Comeback Story - The Importance of Mindset, Goals, and Self-Love

Transcript

Speaker 100:00:00.080

When you start to recognize that everything in your reality, everything in your world, is here to show you you, it becomes so informational and autonomous in its information right in its experience. Because we don't see things as they are, We see things as we are. All right, Welcome everybody, We're back for another episode of Comeback Stories, and today's guest is Danica Patrick. So. Dannika is one of the most successful and widely recognize ath