05: From Living on the Streets to Champion Rally Racer // The Story of Penny Mallory

And then I hit rock bottom at one point and thought, actually I just want to drive rally cars. So before I do something really stupid, I'm going to just get in a car and thank goodness I did. How to develop your resilience, your confidence, your bounce back ability, your courage, your grit, all of those things. If you can develop those things, which you can, you will live a more satisfying, successful life.

Welcome to From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. I'm your host, Eric Gilbert Williams and this is the podcast Explore personal stories of people who hit absolute rock bottom, then got back up, wiped off the dust, kicked failure to the curb, and now they're rocking it like you'd never believe if you didn't hear it. Live right here we cover subjects in business, sports and life in general. If you like this podcast, please share it. These interviews are intended to inspire, to motivate, to give hope and vision. So please share this episode with someone who needs it. Use your Instagram Account, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn hand signals. Trained pigeon sent smoke signals up in the air. Use Morse code, whatever you like. Just share the love and share this episode. Also, email me anytime. Podcasterrickgilbertwilliams.com Send me questions you would like to have asked of future guests and I will incorporate them. Or just send me some suggestions on how to run a better podcast. Or just say hello, I'd love to hear from you. That's podcastricilbertwilliams.com I know you're going to love today's interview, so let's get started here with us Today on From Rock Bottom to Rockin it is Penny Mallory. Penny's Rockin it story is that she was the first woman in the world to compete in a world rally car, and to this day she's remained the only woman to do so. She won the British National Ladies championship rally in 1993 and also did some pretty awesome stunt driving for Renault, which she's going to tell us all about today. Now, Penny's been encouraging audiences everywhere as a motivational speaker and she's all over YouTube, literally. I just kept scrolling through her channel down and down and down and she's talking about this subject of mental toughness. It's one of my favorite subjects and she focuses on leadership development. It's been a long journey for Penny because her rock bottom story comes from when she was very little. She saw alcoholism and mental illness destroy her family. She fled home at age 14 and was homeless on the streets of London. Penny, welcome to the show. I'm so glad you're here.

Hi, Eric, how are you doing?

I'm doing well, thank you. How are you doing over there?

I'm good, I'm good.

And you're out in London right now, I think at the time of this call. Right.

I'm not in London, I'm in the Cotswolds, which is about two hours from London. It's very beautiful, but it has not stopped raining in the UK for months, so it's a bit miserable at the moment.

I heard you get used to it out there and it just becomes a part of nature.

I never get used to it.

Fair enough. Now, I remember when I was looking at your Wikipedia profile, there's a photo of you standing there with a bunch of trophies on top of a car.

Yeah.

How many medals are in that photo? And if you remember, I'm not sure how long ago that photo was taken, but what were those medals for? What competitions were they?

There's eight trophies. We got four each, so there's eight in total we won. I can't even remember what they all were. We were the first women to do what we did. And so I think the awards were. There was definitely one for first female, There was one for something in class, one for something overall, I can't remember. But whatever, it didn't matter to me. I went to prove a point and to prove something to myself. And it doesn't really matter what the trophies were for the to be honest, because just that moment was everything I dreamt of and more. I'd wanted to be a rally driver since I was 6 years old. I saw something on TV and I did nothing about it for many, many years. And then I hit rock bottom at one point and thought, actually, I just want to drive rally cars, so before I do something really stupid, I'm going to just get in a car. And thank goodness I did.

That was the life changing moment that led down this path entirely.

Yeah.

And I remember when I was looking up here online that you said somewhere that you didn't like school very much. In fact, you said that you hated it. Now, I dropped out of school really early and found business, which was ultimately my passion. And it's fair to say that I hated school too. It didn't work out for me at all. What did you mean and what were you referring to exactly when you said that you didn't like school, that you hated school? Where did you end? Like, how far did you make it?

I didn't get on at school because I wasn't getting on in life at home. My life was really miserable. I was deeply unhappy child. So I was unhappy everywhere. There was nowhere that I was thriving. So I sort of cut myself off emotionally from the world and from people. And I wasn't engaged in anything. I was just pretty sorry for myself, to be honest. So I was never going to do terribly well at school. I just wasn't in the right headspace.

Everything's connected in life, isn't it? It's tough to have one thing going well and another thing not going well. It's all connected and goes back and forth, wouldn't you say?

Exactly that. I've never been able to separate. I don't know how people do it, separate work and home and different things. Because it's all my life. It doesn't matter what hour of the day it is. It's all my head, it's all my thinking, it's my performance and it's all completely joined. There's no separation.

When I was watching one of your YouTube videos, you were on stage talking to a big group and you were talking about, and correct me if I get the words wrong here, you were making an analogy. You were saying that so many people are driving through life. It's as if, and I think your words were exactly. It's as if the rear view mirror is bigger than the windshield. So we're trying to go forward, but all we see is what was in the past. We're not focused on what really matters and that's what's coming up next.

A lot of people will spend their time looking in the rearview mirror, which is okay for a point of reference, but if you keep staring in the rearview mirror, you're going to crash. Yeah, the windscreen is big and wide and clear for a very good reason. You have to look forward and you can make points of reference, what's going on behind you or what's gone behind you. But really your time and your attention has got to be spent looking forward.

Here at From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. You know that I love to support charities, causes and people who are making positive change and having a positive impact on the world. So remember to share this channel and share this episode with anyone that you think needs to hear it. Please subscribe and give us a five star review. And for the next 30 seconds or so, I'm going to talk a little bit about Nelly's. Nelly's is a shelter and education and an advocacy for women and children who are experiencing a difficult time. It's a community based feminist organization which operates with an anti racism and anti oppression framework. And that's Nellys.org, it's N E L L I E S.org and they're committed to social change through education and advocacy to achieve social justice for all women and children. Now at the core of their operation is a 40 bed emergency shelter for women and children who are homeless or escaping violent situations. At Nelly's, they give them a home where they can feel safe and a community where they can feel supported and work through these challenges. Now, many women and children arrive only with a little bit of clothes on their back and basically no money. So they give food, they give clothing and protection and they support these people in their greatest moments of need, including crisis counseling to reclaim control of their lives. So visit nellys.org that's n e l l I e s.org that's two L's and an S. So n e l l I e s dot org to support the charity, to learn more about it, to perhaps share it with a friend that you think really needs it, or to apply for yourself. Check it out. And now back to this powerful interview. And one of the favorite lines that I heard you say, it was a question actually for the audience and it was, is being world class just for special people or is it something for everyone? Yeah, and you were saying that it's a choice that ultimately people need to make.

I've had the absolute privilege of working inside and alongside a lot of world class teams. And what I've seen is that people choose to operate in a high performing way. That's simply a choice. It's mindset, attitude, approach, that's what makes really successful people, what makes them stand out. So it's entirely a choice. It's just that, you know, if you really want to get to elite of something, there is a price to pay. And most people don't want to pay that price. They spend the most their whole lives trying to find a balance of things. But high performers try to get things out of balance, to give all their focus and time on one thing. And when you spread your time and attention, nothing will be attended to particularly.

Right.

That world class is a choice that most people really aren't prepared to make. It's too big a price to pay.

I've been looking forward to this question, to ask you a very specific question. So people that listen to this show regularly, they know that I love to fly planes. I don't have a pilot's license, but I love to go up with other pilots or do hang gliding or paragliding. Or skydiving or whatever it is, anything in the air. And I was doing these extreme stunts in these aerobatics, plains above the Nevada desert. And these planes were extreme, right? They were rated for 20 times gravity on the wings, right? So you can do anything, loops, barrels, dives, spins, even tumbles. And anyways, when I landed, when we came out of the cockpit, I realized that we could never do these types of stunts on, for example, a Boeing 747 commercial airliner, right? So the commercial airliner is designed to do a long distance stable flight. I mean, the pilot can let go, have a nap, technically speaking, and let the plane fly itself. Once it's in the air, the plane essentially flies itself. Whereas if I were to let go and when I did let go of the controls, even for a brief moment in these stunt aircrafts, they just tugged and turned and they just wanted to move and go all over the place. They would not remain stable if I wasn't maintaining 100% focus. And so I looked at both of these types of planes and aircraft experiences and I thought, man, I wonder if high performance requires instability. If the plane is more stable and more reliable in that respect, then maybe it's not going to perform as high as the stunt aircraft. So there's this analogy, and I wondered if the same thing applies in life, right? Does a stable person perform as well? Maybe someone who's more of a risk taker? I mean, do we have to take big risks in order to perform really well? And if I don't desire to have high performance, is there a correlation then to me being a non risk take, for example?

I think it is. That's exactly that. It's about risk. You know, you talk about stability of a plane, but really it's stability of choices. The people who are prepared to put themselves on the line and take a chance, usually the people will succeed. You take someone like Richard Branson, for example, spent his entire life taking crazy risks and lucky for him, it all paid off. Some of them didn't, though. Some of the risks he took really were horrendous. But if you live a safe and comfortable life, you will never achieve anything particularly special because you can't in that comfort zone. That's not where you learn and you develop and you experiment and you discover that's not what happens in your comfort zone. So if you're prepared to get a little bit unstable and take a few risks, that's. Well, I think that's where life gets exciting and that's where exciting stuff starts to happen, but it's something that most people shy away from.

I find it exciting. I mean, that's where I live the majority of my life. It is risky, it is a roller coaster, but that's just how it goes. I've had a number of philosophical debates with people on the subject of choice versus circumstance. And I'm typically arguing on the side. I mean friendly arguing, I'm not hitting each other and freaking out. And I'm typically arguing on the side to suggest that choice is more powerful than circumstance. Therefore, regardless of my circumstance, I suggest that my power of choice and my ability to choose can get me out of it and is more powerful than the circumstance. Now granted, when the circumstance is more difficult, then of course it's more difficult to choose your way out of it, specifically when we're talking about death. And that's maybe a bit of a different subject, but generally speaking, I do believe firmly that choice is more powerful than circumstance. So I have to ask, you know, what do you think about this subject?

Yeah, I think how you see choices, your perspective on life, what you see as opportunities, what you see as threats, what you see out there, how open minded you are, how you prepare to widen your view of the world, will also have a massive impact on the life you live, the quality of the life. You don't see those choices unless you open up your vision and your perspective. So it's all completely linked. But that's all about mindset, really. You know, you know, about growth, mindset, fixed mindset. The people that go through life thinking, this is my life, there's nothing I can do about it. I'm stuck with what I've got and who I am by default, they're never going to achieve anything particularly exciting because they don't see opportunity, they don't see choice, they don't see chance.

How did you make this leap from when you were a kid and struggling to being a woman who's in control of your life like you are. How did you make that leap and open up your eyes? And here's the reason I'm asking. You know, there's people listening to this right now who are saying, oh, that's fine and oh, you're lucky. And oh, that applies to you, but not to me. Ultimately these people are wondering, how does this apply to my life? There's a lot of people out there in a really tough spot. And what would you say the minute.

I sat in a rally car and I had to borrow the money, I didn't have any money to sit in A rally car. But I thought before I do something stupid, I'll sit in a rally car just to say I've done it and then I'm going to disappear.

That's where it all starts. Just do it.

That's changed my, the course of my life because I suddenly felt excited, exhilarated for the first time ever. I'd never had that feeling before. And all I really wanted to do. In hindsight, I didn't realize this at the time, but at the time I wanted to impress my father who I'd lost contact with for 20 odd years. I wanted to do something special. I wanted to be loved, I wanted to feel worthy. And I suddenly thought, oh my God, if I could get great at rally driving because this is really exciting me, I might actually get my father's attention as well. This is just about the most exciting thing I've ever done. So it got to me. I didn't have anything. It was simply that circumstance that changed the course of my life.

Hey everyone. Eric. Here on From Rock Bottom to Rockin it. And on today's episode, I decided to support an organization called Fred Victor. You can check them out online@fredviktor.org this is an organization specifically focused on helping people who are homeless out in the world during this COVID pandemic. And obviously it's challenging for everyone. It's difficult for everyone in this time who. Social distancing affects everyone in every way. And if you're homeless, it even brings it to a new level. I mean, how do you protect yourself when you don't have that money? How do you stay apart from people when you have no place to live? So that's what Fred Victor is all about. Check out the website, it's FredVictor.org that's FredVictor.org I encourage you to check out the website, pass the resources around, Donate, please, wherever you can. There's a relief fund that they're raising for very actively and every dollar that you put in here is going to go a lot farther than you probably would ever realize. There's easily in Toronto, there's over 9,000 people without a place to call home and they're extremely vulnerable to the spread of COVID 19. Do it for them, do it for us, do it for the country, do it for humanity. You know, we all work together to get through this and we will get through this. Check out fredviktor.org and now back to the interview. And you said that you wanted to show your dad so he could see that you could drive Is that what you mean?

Yeah. I wanted. I thought if I can be a successful rally driver, maybe my dad will take some notice of me and get in touch with me or maybe he'd even like me or love me or something. It was all misguided, a bit sad, but that's actually the truth. I would never have admitted this years ago, but I'm happy to fess up now.

I talk about this specific subject a lot with some of my friends when I was little. And I was motivated by trying to prove to myself and to the world that I'm a good person and trying to make up for the fact that my dad basically wasn't there. And in a way, people could say that that was maybe an unhealthy motivator. They certainly could say that, and they wouldn't be entirely wrong. But when I look back at my life back then, and I take a good, honest look at it, I can see that my life was in a negative spiral. And in my adult perspective, I don't think it really matters how that negative cycle breaks. What matters most is not the how it breaks. It's important that it just breaks. Right. That cycle needs to end some way, somehow, some method, as long as it stops and we can start to enter. And I can start to enter a positive cycle for me to prove myself to the world. Yeah, maybe that's an unhealthy motivator, fundamentally speaking, but it broke the cycle and helped me get to a place where I'm happy in life. And I've done some amazing stuff that's come from it. Right. And I feel like you might be able to relate to what I'm saying here, and I'd love to hear your mind on this subject. Have you thought about this particular subject much? Do you talk about this in your groups? What are your thoughts on this?

Yeah, I mean, everyone's stories is different, but yours has a lot of parallels with mine that I was so stuck in a negative pattern of thinking. I didn't know any different, but completely different environment and an experience that thrilled me, that sort of broke the seal for me. And I suddenly saw opportunity that I had never seen. And I felt excited. And I couldn't remember in my lifetime feeling excited like I did when I got in a rally car. So it was such a physical and emotional meeting of things that it just sort of took me over and I became completely obsessed for the next 12, 15 years. Yeah.

And did you have to change your friends?

I wasn't really interested in anything else. This is so Sad. I didn't care. I just wanted to drive. So I wasn't interested in making friends. I wasn't interested in shopping or going out or doing whatever. Everything stopped, and I was focused on driving, getting sponsorship, getting a better car, getting a better team, getting quicker, honing my skill. I wasn't interested in ordinary stuff.

I love that answer. And when I read books or listen to seminars or do group chats and hear people in discussion, there's this abstract approach to changing one's life. People are like, if you want to change your life, you have to change your friends. And here's the instruction manual and here's the steps that you've got to take, and you've got to let these people go and push them out. But for me, it was very much in reverse. It's like you were describing for me, when I was 18 and I discovered my passion for entrepreneurship. It was like an obsession. I was so obsessed about it that naturally people who weren't in line with this passion, with this new version of myself, they just started to drift away. It's not that I changed my friends in order to change my life. No, I changed my life. And then naturally, my friends started to change. There just wasn't room for them anymore. It was like natural evolution.

Yes, absolutely.

Okay, so did you do this naturally? Did you read certain books? Or did you have a mentor? Or was this just you and your raw passion embracing life?

I had no one in my life. I didn't have my brother. I didn't have my mom. I didn't have my dad. I didn't have any family members, any friends that I did have. Didn't understand what on earth I was thinking of driving cars. Nobody got it. Nobody understood. And that was fine, I will just do this. And I'm quite productive. I'm quite practical. And I put everything I had. And amazing how, when. How resourceful you get when you want something bad enough. And I wanted it bad enough. And I was prepared to do whatever I needed to do to raise the money to get the car together. And the wonderful thing about, I suppose I didn't have anyone interfering. I could be completely committed, obsessed, without anyone questioning it or troubling me. And so all my eggs were in one basket. All my balance was out. But that gave me the opportunity to focus all my time and attention on this one thing. And I think when you do that, you have a higher chance of success. But like I say, most people would think, well, that sounds awful. I don't want to focus all my time and attention on one thing. I want to spread my time and attention, attention. And that's cool. That's what most people do.

And I imagine that you talk about this stuff a lot when you're in front of groups. Now you've been speaking to audiences everywhere. How many groups do you think that you've spoken to? Now, if you had to take a.

Guess, I think there's over 600.

Are you focused broad across the world or do you focus more predominantly on Europe?

UK and Europe mostly, but I've been to Hawaii, I've been to America, I've been to. Where have I been? All over the world. Yeah. It's been the most extraordinary thing. I mean, I had an extraordinary life driving and now I have an extraordinary life talking about performance and driving. And I do try and focus my keynotes on the audience rather than me. I'm a bit tired of talking about me, but I'm really interested in other people's performance and how to help them to discover what they haven't yet discovered about themselves. That's where my passion lies.

I suppose if I ask you to share a transformational story, like someone who came up to you after one of your talks in one of your engagements and they came to you and said, penny, I heard your talk and I changed my life. Have you had people that come back to you later on and tell you a story like this?

There's been a few over the years. People do email me occasionally saying, I saw you spoke or I was in an audience so many years ago when I was in a terrible place and you inspired me to change this and change that. Nothing particularly mind blowing springs to mind, but I have had emails and that's the most wonderful thing because to have any kind of impact on anyone is just a total privilege. To be part of a transformation in somebody is amazing in a few of those over the years.

And that's the whole purpose of this podcast. Again, I resonate with exactly what you're saying there. The purpose of this show is to share stories and see if we can make a positive impact on some people's lives out there. I for one both hope and believe that people will. And this is just a way to give back and to keep that positive cycle moving forward.

I think that's true. And I suppose in a 45 minute keynote, I've got to try and start a transformation in somebody in such a short space of time. So I have to think what is the most likely thing that I can talk about that will have the biggest impact and Usually it's reminding people that they're probably using maybe 50, 60% of their ability. But because people try and live such safe and comfortable lives, we never discover what we're capable of. You know, you could go to the grave not really knowing what you could have done because you never pushed yourself, you never got uncomfortable, you never took risks. You just live that safe and comfortable life. And I just think that's a bit of a tragedy. There must be so many people out there, so capable and able and gifted and awesome and they may never know because they just choose the safe and comfortable line every time. I like to put things on the line and see what's possible, but I guess not everyone's like me.

Well, not everyone's a rally car driver.

It does come down to mental toughness, which is my absolute pet, pet subject, which is, you know, how to develop your resilience, your confidence, your bounce back ability, your courage, your grit, all of those things. If you can develop those things, which you can, you will live a more satisfying, successful life. Because if you can't cope with stress and pressure and challenges of life, you will crumble and crash. And that seems like a shame.

And people can just go directly to your website, I think it was pennymallory.com in order to find you. Is that right? And I'm gonna put a link to your website on the show. Notes to this episode. For anyone listening right now who wants to reach out to you and follow up on that. Mental toughness. It's one of my favorite subjects and there's people listening to this right now who are wondering and questioning, you know, what do I do next? What's the next choice I need to focus on and I need to make. And on this subject of mental toughness, Penny, what would you say to people right now who are trying to find that next step, that one little baby step forward to be in a positive direction? What would you say to them listening right now?

Gosh, it's difficult to generalize, but I would say, you know, have the answers for people. But I'm pretty sure most people have the answers inside of them. And if I could make anything possible right now, what would it be that might be the direction that they should go in? So just quite often it takes somebody outside to challenge your thinking and challenge. Because a lot of people, well, I don't know, I don't know. But actually people do know. They're just not being challenged by the right person with the right questions. I believe all of us have all the answers inside of us just. You need to get the right person to help you, ease them, coax them out of you. So, yeah, if you could make anything possible today, right now, if you can imagine yourself in three or four years, what would it be? And just understanding what the first steps towards that would be. Making a success of your life shouldn't really be easy, it should be a challenge because the whole point is that you learn and you grow and you develop and then if you're lucky enough, like we do, we get to share our experiences with other people. It shouldn't be easy, it shouldn't be a duddle and enjoy the journey. The journey. The ride, which I prefer to call it the ride, is the fun bit. So it can be slightly underwhelming sometimes to get where you're going, but the ride is the best bit of all.

And just before we wrap up here, Penny, if you could share with us what was your rock bottom moment? You know, go as far as you feel like sharing. There's no pressure, of course, but help me understand and help everyone here understand what was your dark moment?

I was in London. My boyfriend was a heroin addict. I was drinking heavily, I was stealing, I was in trouble with police. My life was going absolutely nowhere fast. I had no money, I had nowhere to stay. I was checking out of life. I couldn't. I had no fight left in me. It was too hard, I was too desperate. And I thought, I'll just finish it. But just before I do that, I'll just finish, see what it's like in a rally cup. You know what a rock bottom is sometimes the best thing that anyone can ever have, because you bounce back up from a rock bottom with such a fight in you and such a purpose and adversity is the fuel in your tank, you know, I would not have done what I did if I'd had an easy start in life. It gave me, it was the biggest blessing of my life that I had that adversity at the beginning. In my beginning years, it really gave me. I want people who are having a tough time to absolutely embrace it and welcome it because it's going to be the thing that will help them to bounce back because you will develop your mental toughness and your confidence and resilience. If you really want something, your mental toughness is the source of your success. That resilience will get you there. If you want it bad enough and identifying it, what it is that you want is part of the start of it.

I love it. I could chat with you for hours, but we got to wrap up here so. And I know that you have to go, so we're going to wrap up here and I'm so grateful to have you here on the show. Thank you so much for your time. Everyone listening to this, please remember to share this episode with whoever you feel really needs to hear this. That just share it with your friends. Thank you. Different together until next time. I hope you guys have a rockin it day. Remember to keep on being positive. Look for the next step and we'll talk to you the next time. And that's it, my friends, for this episode. We will see you next time. Please send me an email, say hello, give me some feedback, let me know what you think, give me some tips and suggestions. I'd love to hear from you. Also, please share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, doesn't matter. Just get it out there. I really appreciate it. And we'll see you next time on from rock bottom to Rockin it have a rockin it day.