Taking the Lead: Lessons From a Life in Motion

by Derek Hough

  Whatever you focus on is your reality.

  You tend to move in the direction of what you’re focused on—especially when it’s bad. I remember when I was about nine years old, staying with my grandma and grandpa at the lake, I was playing with my cousins at this construction site. Not the safest place to play, which I suppose is what attracted me to it. I saw a two-by-four with a nail sticking out of it, and I remember running and thinking, Oh man, wouldn’t it be terrible if I fell on that? A few moments later, it actually happened. I tripped and the nail went straight through my knee. I ended up going to the hospital with a two-by-four stuck to my knee because we were afraid to pull it out. The nail was about a centimeter away from cutting a vital tendon that would have required major surgery. So I was really fortunate in that regard. But I couldn’t help thinking that my focus on this nail created the situation. I’ve learned since then that we all have the power to create our own destiny. On some level, we ask for things that happen to us in our lives. You have to know what you want, then be aware of the thoughts you hold in your mind. Negative ones—fear, anger, jealousy, frustration—will undermine you. If you see the nail tripping you up, it will.

  * * *

  REFLECTING ON DEREK

  “Derek was so young when we danced together back in Season 7—I was his third partner. He was finding his way; he hadn’t won his first Mirror Ball yet. He was so different than he is now, in such a sweet and vulnerable way. I don’t think he knew how truly talented he was back then. But he always had this magical ability to make people great. From the tips of my fingers to the bottom of my toes, nothing was ever good enough until it was perfect. Neither of us ever expected to win Season 7. When we did our freestyle, we never ran it through from beginning to end. I was injured; Derek threw out his back. Even in dress rehearsals we barely did it. When it came time to go out and perform, we stood backstage and looked at each other, hoping for the best. It had so many tricks, and we kind of surprised ourselves with how well we nailed it. Fast- forward five years, and I see how many life lessons I’ve learned from my friend Derek. He helped me discover my own champion. He taught me how to dance through chaos, and how to find my own rhythm in my everyday life. I feel like we did a lot of growing and learning together.”

  —BROOKE BURKE

  * * *

  10

  THE WORLD IN MY HANDS

  AFTER HEIDI, I partnered with Aneta Piotrowska. She was a knockout: a beautiful, exotic Polish girl with long dark hair. She was sixteen and I was seventeen, and of course, I had an instant crush on her. I’m not even sure how we first met—probably through recommendations from dance coaches who thought we’d be good together. We started dancing together in 2002 and were partners for more than two years. She was my first foreign partner—before I had been only with English girls. I loved her energy and her cute Polish accent.

  Aneta and I were dancing at a qualifying competition in Poland for the World Under 21 Latin Championships. Shirley and Corky decided that we should represent Poland, since it gave us the best chance of making the worlds. It was a calculated political move: the American and UK judges knew who I was, but I needed to catch the eye of the European judges. Representing Poland was the easiest way. To compete, you had to place in the top two of your country. I agreed to it all, although it was definitely weird not to be representing the United States or England, and I barely understood a word of Polish.

  In the first round of the first dance, at about nine in the morning, we were doing the cha-cha and getting ready to transition to the samba. We were really into it, what I like to call being “in the zone,” when Aneta accidentally elbowed me in the face with such force that she knocked me out.

  I woke up on the floor with Corky leaning over me. “Are you okay? I’m sorry!” Aneta said. There was no time for apologies or for me to even get my bearings. We had already missed an entire samba dance in our heat while I was unconscious, and the rumba was next. I stumbled to my feet and took her hand on the dance floor, but my jaw was swollen and throbbing. The medic injected some numbing cream into it, so as the pain faded I began to drool. I felt like I had just gotten a filling at the dentist. There we were, doing this sexy Latin dance of love, and saliva was dribbling down my chin! As I danced, I noticed the drool flying everywhere—onto Aneta, onto the other couples dancing, onto the dance floor. It would have been pretty hilarious had I not been such a nervous wreck worrying that we would blow it. But when they announced the winner, we came in first—even with my round 1 knockout.

  We had a couple of months to get ready for the worlds. We went back to London, our home base to train, and I decided in between practices to lift some weights in the makeshift gym I had set up in our one-car garage. I was nineteen at the time, trying to build up the pecs on one side of my chest. So I stupidly put a heavy weight on one side and it threw the whole dumbbell off-balance. The weight slipped out of my hands and fell. I felt a shooting pain rip through my neck.

  When I woke up in the morning I was in bad shape. My neck was stiff and I couldn’t turn it. We weren’t pros, so there was so such thing as a physical therapist or masseuse to fix it. The best I could do was just rub in some Bengay and hope for the best. When we got to the Czech Republic a couple of days later, my neck still had zero mobility. In order to look to the side, I had to move my entire body. As if that weren’t enough to worry about, we were competing against Rachael, who was now teamed up with the Russian guy who had beaten me as a junior. His name was Evgeni Smagin, and he wore his dark hair greased back. The guy just looked slick from head to toe.

  I turned to Aneta. “This is so not good,” I told her. “They are like the ultimate, ultimate couple. They’re going to beat us.”

  Aneta looked very upset, so I guess something inside me said, “Derek, man up!” My neck was messed up and I was about to get my ass kicked by my archnemesis and my ex. It couldn’t get much worse than that. But we were at the worlds, in this huge arena with everyone cheering. We had made it this far, and I was proud of how hard we worked. “You know, let’s just have an awesome time.”

  And that was it: I took all this pressure off us. We danced our butts off and I forgot to worry about my neck or Rachael and Evgeni. I was just living in the moment, pulling my energy from the roaring crowd. They were going crazy for their Czech Republic representatives, but I didn’t care. I used their energy to fuel mine. There was such a joy and freedom to my dancing that day. I gave myself permission to just let it all go, and my dancing felt pure and unbridled. We got to the finale—I somehow hung in there—and my neck was so tight and throbbing, I could barely turn it to see where Aneta was. It was kind of like dancing with blinders on; I had tunnel vision. Yet on we danced, till the judges called time. I had made it; we had made it. All I wanted now was a huge ice pack and a nap.

  They read the names out from sixth place to first. We were standing backstage behind a huge curtain, and Rachael and Evgeni were right next to us. Swell. I thought maybe we stood a chance of coming in fourth. But they didn’t call us. “This is crazy!” I whispered to Aneta. “We’re top three?” Then they called a German couple. We were in the top two!

  Rachael smiled at me. “Oh, Derek! Great job!” she said. What she really meant was, “We’re going to take first place and you can have our sloppy seconds.” Then we heard, “In second place, from England . . .” Rachael’s face went white as a ghost. She and Evgeni were second! That left only one place for us . . .

  “Derek Hough and Aneta Piotrovska are world champions!”

  I started screaming, “What? What?” and jumping up and down. So much for my neck pain. This wasn’t real; it couldn’t be! I ran out from behind the curtain, pumping my fists in the air. I caught a glimpse of Rachael’s face. She was beyond pissed.

  “We did it! We did it!” I yelled. The rest happened in slow motion: I ran out and jumped off the stage, not realizing there were about fourteen steps between the stage and the floor. While I was midair, I remember thinking, “I’m
wearing these Cuban heels. This isn’t gonna be good.” Then I hit the floor and my legs buckled. I fell into a roll, then stood straight up—as if I meant to do it all along. I limped over to Aneta to collect our trophy and we hugged. I didn’t give a crap about anything else. Not my neck or my knees or Rachael fuming as they snapped pictures of all of us. It was an amazing moment, a total high.

  The next day, we were driving back to Poland to catch a flight to London. I was barely paying attention when we decided to stop at Auschwitz, the Holocaust death camp. I hadn’t learned a thing about the Holocaust in school, so I had no idea what this place was. I remember it was raining, and the sky was filled with dark storm clouds. We walked through the chambers, viewing the collections of personal effects that had belonged to the people who were killed here. There were piles and piles of shoes, glasses, prayer books. We surveyed the rooms in silence. What could you say? The pain these people had to endure was unfathomable. Why? What had they done? Nothing. The numbers were devastating: millions of innocent people killed, torn from their families, treated like animals, not human beings.

  I realized in that moment how lucky I was. I wanted to drop to my knees and thank the universe for everything I had: my family, the Ballases, my life in London. My win felt so insignificant at this moment. The experience definitely planted a seed in my mind: life is so precious, you can’t waste a single moment of it on frivolous thoughts or actions.

  Years later, my dad gave me a book to read: Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl. I thought it would be depressing given the subject matter, but it wasn’t. Frankl believed that you should identify a purpose in life to feel positively about, then actively imagine that outcome. It was how so many people survived the ordeal of the concentration camps. He made it his mission to inspire his fellow prisoners and keep them focused: together, they composed speeches, reconstructed lost manuscripts, pushed away any thoughts of suicide. They clung fervently to the hope of what the future held—despite the odds, despite the fact that everything around them was bleak.

  I felt enlightened; I couldn’t put the book down. Frankl’s words struck a chord deep inside me. What he was saying was that no matter the trials and tribulations you are forced to endure, you and you alone have the power to survive. One section in particular stayed with me: he wrote about being in a car on the train tracks en route to Auschwitz. It was freezing cold, with snow on the ground outside and bodies packed into the cars. But when he woke up, there was a beautiful sunset on the horizon. Even though Frankl was in hell, he knew there was beauty out there and that no one could take that away from him.

  What had started as the greatest high in my life—winning the world championships—became so much more. My trip was a turning point, the first step in this man’s search for meaning.

  LEADING LESSONS

  There’s always an answer.

  No problem is ever hopeless—not even when you’re facing your enemies with a stiff neck! With every disappointment on the dance floor, I grew to believe this more. Now, instead of feeling overwhelmed, frazzled, or that life is conspiring against me, I hold on and tell myself the answer is just an inch away. Great leaders are great simplifiers. They can cut through the doubt and despair so the solution becomes clear. It may not be instantaneous, but it will be there. Every challenge can be faced in dozens of ways. Sometimes the situation changes, or sometimes you change the way you see the situation. Part of our human condition is that we feel that we have to suffer in order to solve a problem. It doesn’t have to be this way. Sometimes surrender is freedom.

  You always have the power of choice.

  Externally, things may be out of your control. But one thing you can always control and master is your inner control: how you perceive the situation, how you filter it. There’s a tremendous freedom in taking leadership of how you perceive things. An obstacle is only an obstacle if that’s how you look at it. We make choices every day, and when you choose not to choose you are also making a choice. As soon as you make the conscious decision to be happy or successful, the universe moves to get you there. You can choose what impacts you. You can choose what scares you. You can choose to be confident, loved, or damaged. You can choose to let something define you or nothing define you. You can’t change the cards you were dealt, but you can always choose how you play your hand.

  Visualize a purpose and an outcome.

  This concept really struck me from reading Frankl, and it’s a lesson all leaders need to master. Think of it as a mental dress rehearsal for what will happen (notice I said will, not could). If you picture a positive result, it trains your brain to look for the resources that will help you achieve it. Seeing what you want stimulates your creativity and strengthens your confidence. This is more than just daydreaming. It’s eliminating the self-doubt and negativity that can deter you, and putting in place a plan that will lead you on your desired path. And once you know that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s much easier to face the dark.

  * * *

  REFLECTING ON DEREK

  “Derek was taught from a young age to have an open mind and to use out-of-the-box thinking. I am very proud that this still continues in his life; it makes all the difference.”

  —CORKY BALLAS

  * * *

  11

  CUTTING FOOTLOOSE

  WHEN I GOT back from winning the worlds, I felt like something had shifted inside me. I did some more competitions for a while, but the fire was starting to die down. I couldn’t believe that I would ever stop wanting to win; competing had been my whole life up until now, and I didn’t know I was capable of wanting anything else. But when I reached my goal, I thought it would feel different—that the thrill would last me a lifetime. Instead, I felt itchy. What could I do to challenge myself now? What else was there for me to do besides compete? Had I plateaued at nineteen?

  Shirley and Corky supported my decision to do something different 100 percent. They never wanted Mark, Julianne, or me to make a life out of being a competitive dancer. To them, it was a stepping-stone, a means to achieving more. They were just as eager as I was to see what the next chapters of my life would hold. I had some definite ideas. I had always loved singing—even if it was just with Mark—and I had back-burnered it because of my dancing. I’d dabbled in musical theater in school. Italia Conti was always putting on some show or another: Miss Saigon, Jekyll & Hyde, The Wild Party, Chess. I was even the lead, Cliff, in the school production of Cabaret. So I got a head shot and put together a résumé and decided to go on some real auditions. I did three or four competitions at the same time and didn’t win. It became clear to me that I couldn’t do both. If I wanted to be in musicals, then that had to get 100 percent of my attention. So I stopped training and competing and put all my energy into theater.

  While I was well known in the ballroom dance community, no one had ever heard of me in the theater circles. I was a kid with no experience and not a clue of how the process even worked. It was like starting with a clean slate and having to prove myself all over again. There were plenty of rejections (too short; too tall; too young; too inexperienced; too blond!), before I wound up as a background dancer—literally, the last guy on the left in the back—in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The show was playing at the world famous London Palladium in Oxford Circus, and it was my first real paying job—a couple hundred pounds a week. It was anything but glamorous: ten guys all crammed into one tiny changing room.

  When I was hired, they asked me to cut my hair so I could look more like everyone else in the ensemble. I refused; long hair was kind of my thing. Instead, I gelled it and hair-sprayed it down so tightly, hurricane-force winds wouldn’t have been able to budge it. Thankfully, they didn’t complain or fire me. They had bigger things to worry about—like how to make a magical car fly over the stage. The whole show was pretty hokey and so not me, but it was an amazing learning experience and it lit that fire in me again. The guy I sat next to in the dressing room had been in theater for twenty y
ears. He was about thirty-eight, and he was always picked for the same parts in the chorus. I looked at him, and the prospect of being in his shoes twenty years later terrified me. I didn’t want to be that. I didn’t want to spend my life going from show to show and never progressing. It was always the case with me: whenever I started something, I couldn’t rest until I became the best at it. A chorus boy job was fine for right now, but I had bigger dreams. I wanted not only to sing and dance in the West End—I wanted to be a lead.

  After the show ended, I auditioned for Fame: The Musical. Like most cattle calls, it was held in a dark, dingy, old building. There were about twenty people hanging out in the hallways, warming up. I went into the bathroom to run through my song—at least it was quiet in there. I waited a few hours for them to call me in.

  “So, what are you going to do for us, Derek?”

  I handed the piano player a rumpled piece of sheet music. “‘One Song Glory,’ from Rent.” It was my go-to audition song. I loved the lyrics and the idea behind it: time flies, find one song that rings true and brings you glory. They asked me to read a scene from the show, and while Karen Bruce, the choreographer, seemed to like me, in the end I didn’t get the part. A few weeks after, I went on an audition for Footloose. There was Karen again; she was both the choreographer and director this time. I read for the part of Ren (if you’re the one person on the planet who hasn’t seen the 1984 movie, that’s the Kevin Bacon part). They asked me to read a scene opposite this short stocky guy named Giovanni Spano who was playing Ren’s right-hand man, Willard. He was a total ball of energy with a Cockney accent, and we became instant friends.