Hayden Paddon on the Monte Carlo Tragedy, Panic Attacks, and an Unlikely WRC Comeback

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My guest today is Hayden Paddon- one of New Zealand’s greatest ever motorsport athletes.

Hayden is a World Rally Championship winner, a seven-time New Zealand rally champion, a two-time European rally champion, and the first person from the Southern Hemisphere to ever win a WRC event.

But this conversation is much more than just about driving cars at ridiculous speeds on gravel road.

Hayden joined me fresh off a World Rally Championship podium finish in Croatia - something even he didn’t expect after eight years away from the top level of the sport.

Hayden is incredibly open in this conversation.

He talks about being bullied, struggling with his weight as a kid, his parents’ separation, depression as a teenager, anxiety, his complicated relationship with confidence, and the fact that he is driven more by fear of failure than by success.

We also talk in depth about the 2017 Monte Carlo crash where a spectator lost his life.

Hayden explains what happened, how it affected him, and what it was like returning to Monte Carlo this year for the first time since that accident - including panic attacks, sleepless nights, and having to face the one place he had tried to avoid for eight years.

This is a motorsports conversation. But it is also a conversation about life. About loyalty. About grief. About resilience. About the cost of chasing one dream for your entire life.

This is the first time we met, and I found Hayden to be entirely honest, thoughtful, vulnerable and very, very Kiwi.

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