Taking the Lead: Lessons From a Life in Motion

by Derek Hough

  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.

  My relationship with my parents changed drastically when I went to London. It had to; with an eight-hour time difference, it was difficult to connect on the phone, and when we did, I kept everything light and positive. If I had problems or concerns, I couldn’t admit it to them. I didn’t want them to ever worry. But I knew that when I did hit times when I was down or overwhelmed and homesick for the Utah sun, I could pick up the phone and come home the next day. I never did, but I knew the door was always wide open.

  And that’s what helped me stay so long—nearly ten years. Knowing that I had two homes, two lives, and two families helped me feel secure. I went from feeling like the rug had been swept out from under me to feeling that I had a strong, solid foundation on both sides of the pond. I felt like the luckiest kid in the world.

  LEADING LESSONS

  Live in a state of gratitude.

  When I was a little boy, my dad taught us how to pray. We’d give thanks for meals; in church we’d thank God for his blessings. But as we grow older, expressing gratitude seems less important. We’re not as appreciative of the little things; we lose sight of what we already have in our quest to have more. I’m not a religious person anymore, but I see the value in prayer. It’s a brilliant incantation you deliver at any time during the day. You physically change your body—you fold your arms, you bow your head—and then you give thanks out loud for all that’s good in your life while expressing faith that what’s bad will get better. Gratitude reminds us to not give up, to have a positive attitude, and to open our hearts. When I was in London, I would gaze out the train window and think to myself, How lucky am I? Not every kid gets to follow his passion with every fiber of his being. I was so grateful, and that made everything I experienced so much richer. Today, in the crazy rush that is my life and my career, I constantly have to remind myself to stop and take stock.

  Remind yourself where you come from.

  I spent the majority of my life running away from Utah, from the life I led there, from the memories I associated with those early years. It felt very someone-else-ago to me. London changed me profoundly.

  When we were dancing on DWTS together, Jennifer Grey called me one night. She was having trouble with her back and wanted to see a physiotherapist. “Can you come with me?” she asked. She drove us through a residential section of Beverly Hills. We pulled into a house with a shed out back. Oddly, it didn’t look like a doctor’s office. There was a couch and incense burning. An Australian guy with a white beard came in: “Hey, mates.” I looked at Jen and she winked at me. This was no physical therapy. She’d signed us up for some bizarre couples therapy!

  The guy spoke to us for a while, then he asked Jennifer if she wouldn’t mind leaving us to chat. I thought the whole thing was pretty out there, but I didn’t think I could make a run for it.

  “So, Derek,” he said. “Tell me about your childhood.” I laid it all out for him—I talked for almost two hours—and he nodded. “You can go pick him up now.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Pick who up?”

  The therapist smiled. “That younger boy, that self you left in Utah. You left him there while you’ve been on a mission moving forward so vigorously. Now you can go get him back.”

  I sat there, utterly stunned and speechless. It was beyond powerful and enlightening. Had I really left that part of me behind? Had I lost that fun-loving, wide-eyed kid and all his creative exuberance?

  When I came out of my therapy session, Jennifer was waiting for me. “If I’d told you this was where we were going, you wouldn’t have come,” she said. She was right. She had to blindside me to get me to grapple with this. She’s a very spiritual person, and she saw how I was struggling, how I seemed to be in some kind of emotional rut. Just visualizing myself taking the old Derek by the hand was an incredible exercise. I think we often tuck our younger selves away for safekeeping. In my case, I associated my early years with painful memories. I wanted to keep young Derek at a distance. But what I forgot was all the good I experienced with him as well: the joy, the hope, the excitement, the wonder. I forgot what a great kid Derek was. I gave myself permission to reconnect with that little boy, to see the world through his eyes again. It was the kick in the butt I needed.

  Jennifer would say, “Told ya so.”

  * * *

  REFLECTING ON DEREK

  “In every dance that I did with Derek, there were at least two moves or moments that I looked forward to, like a kid in a candy shop. It was always very satisfying to see Derek’s face after the dance was over, when he looked at me with so much pride. He and I both knew how
hard-won it was. There was not a dance that we did that was easy for me. Every week, I had a crisis of faith. I could set my watch to it. Feeling like, This is the time, this is the dance where I am goin’ down. Derek’s brilliant choreography coupled with the experience of being taught by him was extraordinary. He is an amazing dance partner. Facing my fears in doing Dancing with the Stars took everything I had, and Derek made it more than worth the Herculean effort.”

  —JENNIFER GREY

  * * *

  8

  WILD THANG

  I’VE ALWAYS HAD this split personality: the crazy, wild, silly kid, and the very disciplined, focused dancer. My old coach Rick dubbed me “Heavy D”—that was me at my most competitive and aggressive. In London, Mark and I were a dangerous duo: crazy meets crazy. We threw Shirley’s garden hose into the heated swimming pool pretending to “slay the snake.” We set up a trampoline next to that pool and did flips and dives into it for hours. At Halloween, we egged houses and decorated our own to look like something out of a horror flick. I was always “borrowing” Corky’s things: an Armani tux worth thousands for a school play, and his brand-new expensive Bally shoes for skateboarding. When I returned them to him, the shiny loafers looked like they had been run over by a truck.

  In Utah, my parents didn’t know how to punish me for misbehaving; Shirley, however, was a master at it. She knew I would spend twenty minutes every morning gelling my hair into place. All she had to do was take that gel away and I would suffer miserably! Another time, Shirley and Corky actually took the door off our room. The absence of privacy made us nuts, but it didn’t stop us from acting up. When we were barely teenagers, Mark and I cruised around our posh neighborhood on our skateboards dressed in baggy jeans and hoodies.

  We got chased out of any respectable place of business and run off the sidewalks for grinding on them. We got lots of dirty looks. If there was a DO NOT ENTER sign it was an open invitation for us to barge right in. We thought we were the Untouchables. We went to the local church and climbed up on the roof till we reached the steeple, laughing at the world below us. Then we sat there, daring each other not to fall off, watching the sun set.

  We hung out in the newsagents’ (what Americans call convenience stores), buying nothing, flipping through magazines, ogling pretty girls who wouldn’t give us the time of day, until the owners tossed us out for loitering. We mouthed off to everyone and listened to no one. I think it was our way of dealing with all the discipline and structure of the dancing. If we could cut loose and act like metalheads when we weren’t in rehearsal, then we wouldn’t resent the long hours and hard work when we were.

  I started smoking, too—I couldn’t have been much older than thirteen. I found it comforting while I was waiting for a train, and I thought it made me look cool and older. One day, I was smoking with some schoolmates in the sixth-floor bathroom instead of going to class. The door to the stall was locked, and I was standing on the toilet seat, dropping my ashes out the small window, when the headmaster walked in. I thought he’d explode and suspend us—I was used to this kind of reaction back home when I misbehaved. But instead, he just chased us out with a warning. Lucky for me, my school in London was forgiving.

  But this wasn’t the case at home. As I mentioned, if you crossed Shirley, you paid a price. One night, around midnight, I snuck into the bathroom and lit up a cigarette. I opened the window wide and leaned my head out so no one would smell it. There was a knock at the door.

  “Derek? Are you in there?” It was Shirley.

  I panicked, tossed the butt out the window, and tried to fan the smell of smoke out of the room with a towel.

  Finally, I opened the door. She had a stern look on her face, and I pretended I didn’t notice.

  “Are you smoking?” she asked.

  “Huh? Smoking? No, of course not!”

  Shirley stood there, glaring at me. I didn’t know what she was waiting for or what else she wanted me to say.

  “Are you smoking?” she repeated. Her voice was calm and low.

  “No, no,” I insisted. “Honest.”

  She raised her hand and slapped it hard across my cheek. I swear I almost swallowed my teeth.

  “What the hell?” I gasped. My cheek stung and I was in shock. I could feel the five fingerprints across my face.

  “That wasn’t for smoking. That was for lying,” she replied. Then she turned and walked back to her bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

  That was the day I learned never to lie to Shirley. She could put up with just about anything—my mouth, my antics, even my smoking. But she would not tolerate anyone lying to her face. If she asked me a question, she expected an honest answer. I respected her for that, and I tried to abide by it. But sometimes, circumstances were beyond my control.

  One night I was out drinking in a pub with friends. I was a teenager, and we were tossing back beers and acting like big shots. All of a sudden, the room started spinning.

  “Hey, I’m taking off,” I told my friends. “I don’t feel great.”

  I stumbled out of the bar to King’s Cross station to catch the train home.

  I felt kind of woozy and drunk, drunker than I should have been from a few beers. I remember thinking, Someone must have spiked my drink, just as everything went black.

  I woke up on the floor of the station with a homeless dude looming over me.

  “Hey, pal, got some money?” he asked. His breath reeked of alcohol, but I suppose mine didn’t smell much better.

  I was still disoriented but managed to crawl to my feet and stumble outside, where I found a cab. I told the driver my address. I rolled down the car window and threw up the entire drive home. I was such a mess, I couldn’t even make it to the front door. I collapsed in the front yard, facedown in the rain and the mud, till six in the morning.

  When I finally walked into the house, Shirley was crying and Corky was furious. They had been worried sick about me all night. I prepared myself for a verbal lashing, but there was none. Just a simple order: “Take a shower and get ready for school.”

  My head was pounding and the smell of breakfast on the table made me want to retch. But I did as I was told. There was no missing classes because I made some stupid choice to go out and party. The Ballases taught me to own my decisions—the good, the bad, even the idiotic. I would never learn to be a man unless I took responsibility for my actions. If I had to suffer through a heinous hangover, maybe that lesson would sink in a little quicker.

  When I got to school, the headmaster took pity on me. “Go take a nap in the boys’ changing room,” he told me. “You look awful.” Trust me—I felt a hell of a lot worse than I looked.

  Whenever Shirley was away, Mark and I would take full advantage. One day, we “borrowed” her BMW X5 and took it for a joyride. We thought we got away with it, till some store clerk remarked to her, “I didn’t know your boys drove! I saw them driving around yesterday.”

  Shirley came home and was determined to get to the bottom of it. She knew better than to ask us—we’d have some lame excuse. So she went right to Julianne. She knew she could crack her.

  “Did Derek and Mark take my car?” she asked.

  Jules didn’t even hesitate: “Yes! And they were smoking, too!”

  Mark and I stood there, our mouths hanging open. Not only had she told on us, she’d offered more details than were even asked! We got an earful from Shirley, but that wasn’t all. She asked a family friend who’d been in jail several times to pay us a visit. He had a reputation for beating people up and breaking their fingers for information.

  “You think that’s clever? You think that’s funny?” he asked us about our joyride in a super Cockney accent. The dude was a true British gangster. “If you do it again, I’ll pay you another visit—and I promise it won’t be pleasant.” That was enough to put the fear of God in us, and we promised we’d never do it again (till next time!).

  If I was going to break any rules, I had to do so without killing myself or w
inding up in jail. There was a way to do it on the dance floor, and Corky showed me how. When he’d started dancing with Shirley, he was a novice, and everyone in the dance community teased Shirley about partnering with him. “Why are you dancing with this guy?” they’d ask her. “He’s terrible. He’s not a natural dancer.” But he defied them—and the odds. He didn’t give a damn what people thought or said, and Shirley had an incredible faith in him and in their partnership. They knew that he had something within him. When I look back, Corky was one of the first who showed me what a true leader does. He holds his head high, he pushes past his limits, he stares down the haters and proves them all wrong.

  I always improvised during dance competitions, just as I’d been taught at Center Stage by Rick. He explained that to defy the rules for the sake of defying them is a bad choice. It’s about finding the right moment to interject yourself and your personality into the performance. That’s when the rules can take a backseat. Some dances you need to be precise and reverent of the foundation—like a waltz. Others, you have some room to give it “flair” and your own individual character—like a jive or a samba. It made sense to me. I couldn’t just go wild on the dance floor. I needed to always be in control of my body and the situation. But occasionally, my youthful exuberance got the best of me. When I was sixteen, we were at the UK championships in the Winter Gardens back in Blackpool. My partner and I were traveling clockwise around the floor doing a paso doble. I was really into it, envisioning myself as the fierce matador. I was intense. I paid no mind to what was going on around me—not the forty other dancers swirling around us, not the flow of the traffic. I thought to myself, “Man! I am on fire!” Then I heard a voice over the microphone:

  “Derek, you’re going the wrong way.”

  I froze in my tracks. It was Bill Irvine, the world champion and ballroom legend who was a commentator that day. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Corky waving his arms in the air like a madman, signaling me to turn around.