Shea Holbrook has learned a lot of lessons during her multifaceted career as race driver, team owner and entrepreneur, and she’d be the first to tell you that she learned many of them the hard way.
But one of the most important ones, she says, is to own your decisions. Even if you regret them.
“There’s things that I’ve done that I said that I have regretted,” she says in the latest episode of The Creative Drive.
“Owning up to that is also really important. There’s one… this was just an opportunity. I remember Patrick Long, professional factory driver for Porsche, called me for an opportunity, and he said, ‘hey, can you drop what you’re doing right now and get on a plane to come to a Porsche? Young driver development program on. This could be the shot.’
“And, it was very difficult, because I was also committed to another opportunity right then and there, and not even in my home state, to get on a plane (to) just magically make this happen.
“It was something I struggled with in the decision making, of, which path do I go? Where could this lead me? And I remember asking Pat, like, ‘hey, is this it? Is this is this going to alter my career one way or the other?’ And I remember Pat even saying, ‘I don’t know, but it’s an opportunity. And I thought of you and I want you to get on a plane if you can.’
“And I ended up turning it down. And I wonder and I question, you know, what would my career path have been if I took that opportunity? But you know what? I probably wouldn’t own this company, BSI. I probably would have married my husband and had two children. I probably wouldn’t have been one of the most successful touring car professional race teams in the last few years. I probably wouldn’t have worked with Connor Zilisch. I probably wouldn’t have helped mentor Sally Mott in the MX-5 Cup.
“I’ve been very blessed to have done a lot of amazing things. Did I make it to the top, top, top of motorsport and professional sports car racing? No, but I’m pretty comfortable and I feel very full in what I did.”
