Toni Breidinger Is Making History as a Professional Race Car Driver, and It All Started at Age 9

Are there any life lessons that you wish you had learned at a younger age?

The biggest thing is to not compare your journey to others. Everyone has their own path to get to whatever goals they're trying to reach. It's easy to think, "Oh, this person is at this age and in this kind of car…." Just stay focused on your own journey and don't compare yourself to others, because that gets you so sidetracked. And then you're not even living in the moment of what you're doing—you're just focusing on someone else's journey.

How do you deal with criticism?

If it's criticism from my own team, I know it's coming from a constructive place and I handle that type of criticism very well. Tell me whatever, you don't need to sugar coat it or anything. But when it comes from social media, or when it's criticism from people that don't actually know me, that bothers me. Sometimes, those are what I get stuck on, so on race day, I turn off social media. I'm not the best at handling negative DMs and comments, so I'd rather just push it off to the side and not invest any energy or time into it.

Do you have a habit or routine that helps you reset if you’re doubting yourself?

I journal every morning and sometimes at night. I write everything from my goals to what I'm feeling that day to what happened. It's fun to look back on too. I'll see that I wrote certain goals and they came true, or something that I thought in the moment was negative actually opened a different window for me. It's crazy to see how that all unfolds.

Do you have any songs you play if you're in a bad mood and want to snap out of it?

Music changes my mood so fast. If I'm driving in my car down the highway and a sad song comes on, I have to skip it because I’ll get in my feels so fast and start crying. I won't even be sad, but I take on emotions so easily. My go-tos are pop or hip-hop—just happy, upbeat music.

What's the last great book you read?

I'm actually reading it right now: Andre Agassi's autobiography, Open. I love getting knowledge from other athletes and hearing what they went through and seeing the parallels on some things that he felt through his journey. I love to learn from other people that have gone on this ambitious journey of chasing their dreams.