Pat Bondurant, The Woman That Can Do It All

See It To Be It

This month on See It To Be It podcast, Melinda speaks with Pat Bondurant, a famed business partner, and wife of legendary World Driving Champion Bob Bondurant. Pat takes us through her successful careers in aerospace, architecture, television, cars, and investing with her. She discusses how she's gotten to where she is today, obstacles she's overcome in the process, and how your trust should not be given out haphazardly.

She begins the episode describing how she was born into a family of five brothers, which ultimately contributes to how she carved her way as a female in numerous male-dominated career fields. Her mother was the second-highest-ranking woman in the civilian division of the government and instilled in her that there was no ceiling on what she could do. Pat started runway modeling for wedding gowns and eventually moved on to regional Ford commercials. She decided a career in fashion was her next move and took a drafting course for fashion school. Her talents in drafting ultimately led her down another path, and she worked for NASA on the first space shuttle. After NASA, she took her skills to interior design and subsequently architecture, designing the Tomahawk cruise missile facility. Later, after seeing an opportunity and seizing it, she started her own extremely successful architectural firm.

She finally met the love of her life, CEO and president of the number one racing school in the world, Bob Bondurant. Bob Bondurant is a world-renowned expert on driver training and safety. He has taught Hollywood's biggest stars to drive race cars for films, including Christian Bale in Ford vs. Ferrari. Pat discusses her and Bob's one-of-a-kind love story. However, she did fall into some traps of abusive husbands before finding her "twin flame." Despite going through a traumatically violent marriage, fighting for her son's safety, moving across the country, and ultimately facing a heartbreaking betrayal by her own son that she fought so relentlessly to protect as a child, she kept moving forward.

She discusses how she gained her success by "letting life unfold." She elaborates by explaining that when she sees an opportunity, she takes it. However, she describes how if a door to an opportunity is difficult to open, she simply moves on to the next door. She emphasizes that no matter what happened, she continued to move forward without any rains on her.

Pat wraps up the episode by revealing her two go-to pieces of advice for other women. First, she encourages women to be careful who they trust because salt can be mistaken for sugar. Second, she also explains how the Bible serves as a handbook, and choosing to pick it up is the key to success.

Learn more about Pat Bondurant: https://bondurantracingschool.com/

Pat Bondurant on being a woman in male-dominated industries:
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“I do not take any BS off of anybody, and let me set the tone right up front."

Pat Bondurant on how she continued to achieve success while enduring a painful time in her life:
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“...it's just all the components of being a powerful, self-willed woman that had to make a living, and when I saw opportunities, I knew when to move."

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Special Guest: Pat Bondurant.