Dani Pedrosa: zen soundbites

A few best bits from our deep dive interview with the three-time Champion on MotoGP™ Podcast Last On The Brakes

MotoGP™ Legend Dani Pedrosa sat down with Matt Dunn and Fran Wyld on last week’s Last On The Brakes Podcast, and the interview was a deeper dive into a good few different topics. Here, we’ve picked out a few soundbites from ‘Little Samurai’ on the more zen side of life – including the secret to overcoming injury and adversity, and how to focus on what’s important.

Overcoming adversity or injury:

“The key is that you have to be patient, knowing that at that moment you can’t do what you want or what you’d like. But in your mind it has to be like ‘Ok, I cannot now, but I will’. It’s not the same as thinking ‘I cannot now, and maybe I won’t be able to then either…’ It’s very different. You have to accept that this situation, maybe it’s difficult for you, but somehow and some way, you will find that road that takes you there to be able to do it again.”

Find your passion. Do you need a goal and a target to work towards?

“Yes. I think, because I’ve seen this with my friends, with some people… they study, they go to university, then after they get a job… and you still see they hesitate because maybe they’re not happy, they don’t feel ‘the thing’. I was very lucky to know at such a young age what my passion was.”

Making the most of the moment:

“You can’t dominate every weekend. Maybe next time someone else will. So you have to really take the moment and make the most of it, make sure you win, and then the feeling is incredible because everything is so smooth and going so well.”

Learning to enjoy the process – as well as the result:

“I don’t understand windsurfing the same way as riding but I’m really enjoying it. Because a rider’s character is that we like to compete, we’re so competitive and we like to do things perfectly, it’s hard to accept when you can’t or when someone else is way better than you. But in windsurfing I relax from that, accept I’m not that good and try to more enjoy the moment and the situation. Some people are competitive in everything, they like the challenge, some others, if they’re not competitive… they just give up.”

Attention – to seek or not to seek:

“I know you have to be a little more into social media but it seems to me like today people – to be on social media – they do funny or stupid things, things that are a bit uncommon. Otherwise you don’t get the attention. I’m not the kind of guy that, to get likes or attention, does those things or stuff you wouldn’t do in real life. So if I have something to say, I say it, but when I don’t, I don’t!”

When you won the race but there’s a ‘bigger story’:

“Sometimes you're in the middle and it’s like ‘Hey! I won the race!’, especially if you didn’t win for a while. But underneath everything, I’m more like ‘ok, you can talk about whatever you want, I have my trophy! I won for my team and my team knows it.’

“I just want people to appreciate the performance. If it's appreciated, I’m super happy, but if not, I just let things go because I’m happy with my performance.”

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