Taking the Lead: Lessons From a Life in Motion (8 page)

After school, I’d take the train home and we’d have dinner. Shirley’s mom, Audrey (we called her Nanny), lived with us and made us dinner (spaghetti Bolognese and roast chicken and potatoes were my favorites). Then we’d drive to the Semly Practice Hall, where I ran my dances with my partners from nine to nearly midnight. It was in this terrible neighborhood called Norbury, and to reach the studio I had to climb two flights of creaky stairs. The whole place smelled moldy, sweaty, and damp, and the lights flickered. There was a little stage; Shirley sat and watched me practice. She gave us pointers here and there, but it wasn’t about corrections. It was a chance to show off and eye up the competition. Some of the world’s greatest dancers practiced there every day.

On a rare night off, Mark got me to go to a Korn concert at Wembley Arena with him. I put my foot in Mark’s hand during “Freak on a Leash” and he hoisted me up. I crowd-surfed from the back of Wembley to the front, allowing hundreds of strangers to carry me in their arms. I felt like I was baptized into rock and roll! From there on in, I was hooked on heavy metal music. Shortly after, Mark and I ended up starting a band together—we called it Almost Amy. I drew a cool logo with two A’s in it.

“Say the first A word that comes to mind,” I told Mark.

I said “Almost” and he said, “Amy.” So there we had it!

We eventually turned the beautiful dining room into our jam space. We took out the marble tables, drapes, and chandelier and painted the walls black and the ceiling red. Shirley and Corky let us do it—it was our cave of creation. I played drums and Mark was on electric guitar (my dad bought it for him for Christmas). We wore black eyeliner and nail polish and punked it out. We even got bookings at battles of the bands in local pubs and at the Gilford Rugby Club. It was pretty funny, because our alter egos were competitive Latin dancers—all low-cut shirts and rhinestones. We could slip easily in and out of both personas—whatever the occasion called for.

We lived in a safe, family-friendly area, but parts of London were rough, as you’d expect from any large city. Mark had a knack for attracting muggers. One time, we were in a train station and a little kid—no more than about eight years old—came up to him: “Oi, mate, give me your phone.” We always carried the cool Nokia phones with the Snake game on them, and they were the hot item. It was like inviting trouble carrying one around, but we didn’t care.

Mark thought the mini-mugger was crazy: “Are you kidding me? No way.” Then he looked over his shoulder and realized the kid wasn’t alone; he had a whole gang with him. So Mark handed over his phone and the kid ran off. I never let him live down the fact that an eight-year-old had mugged him.

I had my own incident as well, but I handled it a little differently. I got off the train at Herne Hill station and noticed that two guys were following me. I could hear their footsteps getting closer and closer. “Give us your backpack,” they threatened me.

“Why? All I have is my homework in here,” I tried to reason with them. They had seen me on the train with my minidisc player and they knew I was holding out on them. “Give it,” they threatened.

My bag was covered with key chains and buttons, and as I took it off my shoulder, pretending to give it to them, I swung it hard in their faces. All that hardware knocked one of them to the ground and stunned the other. With my bag in hand, I ran the mile home without ever looking back. Not bad for a skinny kid in a school uniform.

I was proud of the person I was becoming in London. I thought I would miss home, but truthfully I didn’t. Part of the reason was that there was no time. My days and nights were so jam-packed, I simply functioned on autopilot, going from school to practice and catching a few hours of sleep in between. The other thing that kept me from being homesick was that I knew I was on the right path. I was surrounded by people who believed in me and were taking care of me. So no, I wasn’t homesick. In fact, just like the time I ran from those muggers, I never looked back.

LEADING LESSONS

Pounce on an opportunity—even if you think you’re not ready
.

Whenever I got a new partner—and I had several over the years—I’d want to rehearse for months before we competed. But Shirley would give us two weeks to get five routines down. She’d throw us out there: “You have to bite the bullet.” Ready or not, we hit the dance floor. Why? Because you’re never ready till you’re doing it. No amount of preparation in the world can prepare you for the actual experience. I tell my
Dancing with the Stars
partners this all the time. You can rehearse for weeks, months, years, and still never be
ready
. You have to just go out there and live it—that’s when it will all make sense and come together. You can’t prepare yourself for the actual in-the-moment experience.

Leaders take that leap. You can’t let insecurity hold you back. The walls that protect you are also the walls that imprison you. There’s an old Cherokee story about a grandfather who tells his grandson about the two wolves that live inside us all. There’s a battle raging between them. One is evil—he represents fear, doubt, self-pity, regret. The other is good—he stands for joy, peace, confidence, truth, faith. The grandson asks, “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replies: “The one you feed.”

There may never be a right time or a right place to take a risk. The right time is right now. In the past, I used to overanalyze everything, and if something landed in my lap, some great chance to be taken, I’d often talk myself out of it. I know now that you have to have confidence in who you are and what you want. You have to seize the opportunity and feed the good wolf.

Failure can’t live in the company of perseverance
.

Failure eventually surrenders. Corky and Shirley taught me this. It took them ten years to win Blackpool. Ten years! Some people would give up and throw in the towel after ten minutes! Every time they lost, all the people around them blamed Corky. But he was relentless. He was going to prove his talent not just to the naysayers but also to himself. There were many times as a competitive dancer when I felt deflated and not good enough, but I never gave up—the Ballases never let me. You always have to keep on moving forward and having faith. Think of the greatest leaders we know. What do they all have in common? They all fought some uphill battle to get where they are. Call it tenacity, persistence, or plain old stubbornness. When someone or something tries to push me off my path, that’s when I dig my heels in even harder. I’ll be honest: in some areas of my life, I have this mastered. In others, I need a little reminder now and then. There’s nothing you can’t do if you see it through.

Don’t jump to conclusions over first impressions
.

They’re often dead wrong. When I first met Mark, I thought he was spoiled. When I met Shirley, I assumed she was tough as nails. But getting to know them both as a member of their family, I saw how wrong I was. Shirley is a teddy bear, a caring, loving person who would do anything for me. And Mark? I think of him as a brother, in every sense of the word. I’ve learned to make a special effort to get to know the people who put up walls and seem cold or tough. It’s like an onion; you have to peel back the layers. I’m sure some of my
DWTS
partners made an assumption about who I was the first time they worked with me. They probably thought I was a tough taskmaster and cursed me out for putting them through this! But anyone who truly knows me will tell you, I’m harder on myself than I am on anyone else. And I’m a softie who loves to goof around. But to see that side of me, you need to move past the first impression. What’s the lesson here? Dig a little deeper. Get to know people and what makes them tick. Don’t make an assumption till you know someone a lot better. Think of all the people you might have dismissed who could have been great friends, mentors, or allies, if you’d only given them the chance.

Perfect example: dancing with Lil’ Kim on
DWTS
. She had recently spent time in jail and I remember thinking, Oh my gosh, I’m afraid I’m going to get shanked in the middle of the dance! Then I realized I was judging her without knowing her, something that I have hated people doing to me in the past. It took only a few minutes to see the sweet, loving person she truly was. Had I not given us the chance to get to know each other better, I never would have learned that.

REFLECTING ON DEREK

“Derek’s gratitude is endless. He wants the best for himself but truly understands he has to work for it, and work he does. I could not imagine my life without Derek in it—it would be a boring place! He gives back to me in so many ways: kindness, graciousness, caring, love, honesty. He’s a great man and teacher, and even though I did not give birth to him, I truly feel he is my son.”

—SHIRLEY BALLAS

THE BALLAS BRAT PACK

I
T WAS THREE
months before I went back home to Utah. That was the original plan: I would go abroad, have this great experience, then go home to Orem and get back to my life. That’s what my mom and dad had agreed to, and that’s what I had promised them.

But in those three months abroad, so much happened. I grew up a lot. I developed a strong focus, discipline, and a desire to compete on a much higher level. That overrode everything else. There was no going back to the way things had been—I’d moved past all of that. I had forged a new identity for myself, and I was a part of a new family. It amazed me how quickly it all fell into place. London felt normal; Utah felt strange.

The dust was settling from the divorce, and my dad especially wanted some semblance of normalcy back. He wanted to be a dad to me, and that was impossible to do with five thousand miles separating us. I pleaded with him to send me back.

“Please,” I begged, “I have to go back to London. I’m doing so well there.” I could feel myself moving in a forward trajectory, and I was afraid if I came back to Utah, I’d stop progressing. I was ready to work and ready to achieve all the goals that had been set in front of me. In my mind, there was no other option.

While my parents were mulling it over, a problem cropped up with Mark’s dance partner. The girl outgrew him—literally. All of a sudden, she was a head taller! So he needed someone new, and fast.

“Hey, maybe you should dance with my sister Julianne!” I teased him. She was all of nine years old at the time, still studying at Center Stage. I could see the wheels turning in Shirley’s head as soon as the words came out of my mouth. Julianne was very talented, and she had a maturity to her dancing that was way beyond her years. She had done some competing before, even moved to Florida for a few weeks to work as a couple with a Russian kid.

So Shirley arranged for a little tryout in Studio 6 at Center Stage. Mark and Julianne had good energy together. Shirley saw the potential and offered to take her to London with us.

At first, neither Julianne nor my parents were too interested. But I was a good salesman: “I had a great time—you’ll love it!” I vouched for Shirley and Corky. At the end of the summer break, she relented—as did our mom and dad. Back we went, this time with Julianne in tow. It was a huge change for her, but just as I had, she adjusted quickly. She started at Italia Conti and tagged along with us on the train. She slipped into the regime of school, practice, living with the Ballases, and dancing with Mark. Friends would ask me if I minded having my best friend and sister compete against me. Strangely, I didn’t. I thought they were a good match, and most of the time—because they were nine and eleven, and I was twelve—we were in different age categories. But even when we did face off, there was no bad blood. It wasn’t about trying to be better than one or the other. It was about what we could bring to the table each day. We each had different strengths: What could we do to push and inspire each other? Was there some new step I picked up in practice? A new song that Mark heard that we could try out on the guitar and drums? We all shared the same goals and purpose, so it united us. I wanted them to win as much as I wanted it for myself. I went from being the fourth youngest in a family of five to the oldest brother of three. It was a big identity shift for me, and I was very protective of both of them.

That said, Julianne was definitely a competitor—maybe more than even I was. She loved to brag about how she could beat me (for the record, it only happened once!). She had something to prove being the youngest, and I had something to prove as well: that my decision to stay in London was the right one. How could it not be? I had friends, I was in school (and staying there), I had a strong structure and routine in my life. I couldn’t picture going back to the way it had been before.

I remember one holiday break when I was in the car with my dad, arguing with him about staying in London. “But Dad,” I pleaded, “I want to be successful.”

He looked at me sternly. “You don’t think I’m successful? I have beautiful kids, a home, a great job.” I didn’t mean to put him on the defense, and I realized that his definition of success and mine were two very different things. He didn’t need fame or money or trophies to feel successful. But to me, success was being a champion. I couldn’t put into words back then how I felt, but I can now. London was such a vast, culturally rich city, and I felt connected to that energy. Utah felt small and limited to me for what I wanted to achieve. They were two worlds, so very far apart.

He might not have agreed with me, but it was hard for my dad to argue with our success overseas. When it came down to it, he saw how badly I wanted to stay, and being the unselfish guy he is, he put aside his wants and his needs for mine. My mom struggled with it as well. She would be very supportive to me (“Yes, yes! Go, go!”), but behind closed doors, it would hurt her being away from her kids for so long. People thought my parents were crazy to let us go off and live with strangers. My mom got the brunt of it. They insinuated that she was a terrible mother. “How could you let them go?” nosy neighbors would ask her. She’d reply, “How could I not? How selfish would I be to stand in the way of my children’s dreams?” It was very brave of her and I love her for it. In her mind, it was all about us; it always was.