Now, I don’t mean you have to start taking yourself too seriously and become a corporate robot—variety is definitely the spice of life, and your personality should shine through in everything you do—but accepting the fact that, if you want to represent another person or company, your actions are going to be noticed should carry a bit of weight and responsibility with it. Our industry is too small to be too selfish, take advantage of anyone, or treat people poorly, and one thing I’ve learned is that if you do respect and appreciate every connection you make, you’ll be surprised how much of a positive impact it will have on your career and your life, and you never know when an acquaintance you made will offer some type of support or help when you least expect it.

Along that same vein, one of the greatest gifts my experience has taught me is not to take myself too seriously. I used to be so concerned with living up to what people thought of me and was the first one to look for an excuse, or make one up, if my result wasn’t what I wanted. I think that need to be liked, or more aptly, accepted, is what drives us to look for a reason things went wrong. We can get this idea of what we “want” or are “supposed” to be in our heads and when we don’t live up to these expectations, we have to find a reason to give the people around us. Looking back, I’ve realized that it doesn’t really matter what you tell people, if they want to think a certain opinion of you, they’re going to regardless. What really matters are what you think of yourself, and the effort you’ve put in to what you want to do, or be. Once I truly realized this, it took a lot of the pressure I had been carrying off of my shoulders. I stopped worrying about being perfect every time I raced, or living up to the expectations I thought others had for me, and just enjoyed what I was doing. Another side effect of this is that people do start to look at you differently; when you’re comfortable in your own skin and stop putting up a front to be what you “think” you need to be, people notice and respect that.