Danica Patrick Opens Up About Breast Implant Illness, Inflammation, and Starting Over

**Danica Patrick** (0:00)
Racing is a competition. It doesn't always work, and it can't work all the time. I learned so many of them so young. I'm glad I didn't learn what it was like to learn how to deal with pressure in my 30s. I learned it when I was 10

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (0:12)
Right now, we hear a lot about burnout. Even the most mentally tough people, when you put a health problem in the mix, it's so difficult.

**Danica Patrick** (0:25)
I'm trying harder than ever, and you can't see it. I'm trying harder than ever. That part of my personality is so important to me. The results of the evidence.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (0:38)
Fear is automatic. There is an automaticity to fear, fight or flight. But that regulation is something trained.

**Danica Patrick** (0:46)
The body knows how to heal. You have to just give it the right environment. I was like, okay. So you have to practice patience and rest.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (0:55)
The reality is in order for people to really embody and get to the position that they want to get to, physically, it requires work. There is no magic.

**Danica Patrick** (1:04)
Now, the one thing I'd say about that, and this is something that I recommend to people too, is that.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (1:18)
Danica Patrick, you are one of the most accomplished and recognizable figures in race car driving. You have broken barriers beyond and just pioneered for women a path that never existed. So you're the first, the first through the gate. You've competed for over 10 years at the highest level. You've grown up in the public eye and really under pressure. The only way that people do that and do it well is if they reinterpret the idea of pressure and stress. Now, you've been at the highest level of both IndyCar and NASCAR. And again, you've built this career defined by pressure.

**Danica Patrick** (2:05)
Through a passion, right? I mean, you can relate to that, right? Where something that you feel a calling to or really passionate about and like so much drive for that like everything is just the way. It's not an obstacle. It's kind of like just the way. Like it's, you know, it's not going to be easy. But you love it so much, you keep doing it. That's why I always tell people like, you have to find something that you love. Because if you don't love it enough, you're not going to put in the right amount of effort to be successful. And you're going to eventually quit. And that's the biggest difference between someone that's really successful and that isn't, is that they just don't quit. And you've probably learned that a million times, not only from yourself, but also from people that you've interviewed, too, as I have as well, is that having that vision and holding it, and having what I would call, when I was young and in go-karting and coming up through motorsports, was blind faith. Unless you kind of just know it. Like, you know it's going to happen somewhere deep inside you. You don't really know how or how it's going to look, but you just know. And so, yeah, I had that my whole life.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (3:09)
And I've watched videos of you very young. I mean, you were very young going through this racing and, you know, I think about my kids, my four and six-year-old. I couldn't even imagine them being able to cognitively understand the idea of pressure and challenge. But do you feel like you had to talk yourself into it?

**Danica Patrick** (3:34)
Yeah, I don't think you do know. Like, that isn't, that is something that you learn. I think when you're a kid, you just feel something uncomfortable, right? You don't really know what that stuff is. You have to learn all those emotions. Just like you have to learn discipline and learn discretion and what's appropriate. And all these things are all just stuff that you learn. And I think that I learned so many of them so young, right? Like, my dad was pretty hard on me. And obviously, racing is a competition.
And so it's competitive, it's who be to, it's pretty obvious. So all of those things, I learned really young. And I'm glad, man. I'm glad I didn't learn what it was like to learn how to deal with pressure in my 30s. I learned it when I was 10

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (4:22)
I'm not sure we learn well in our 30s.

**Danica Patrick** (4:25)
I agree. I agree. I mean, like neuroplasticity and subconscious programming is real set, real set, kind of like concrete.