Taking the Lead: Lessons From a Life in Motion (12 page)

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

CUTTING FOOTLOOSE

W
HEN 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 years. 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.

I had no idea, but after Karen saw me at the
Fame
audition, she was thinking of me for this role. I could really connect with the character, a rebel living in a small, religious town who has a passion for dancing. It could have easily been my life story. The original movie was actually shot in Utah, about fifteen miles from where we lived, and they filmed a scene in the Roller Mill right near my old dance studio. I was convinced it was fate.

But it took a lot more convincing for the producers to hire me. I was called back over and over. I could almost read their minds as they watched me act out a scene or sing one of the songs: “This kid is so green. Can he really carry a show?” In the end, they gave me the chance. I was too excited to realize how unprepared I was for all of this. Most people take years to work their way up to a lead. I was just thrown into it. I didn’t have a clue what I was getting myself into. Everyone in the cast and creative team warned me that the role was very physically demanding, more than most roles in the West End. “Pace yourself,” they said. “If you don’t, you’ll never last for the four shows on the weekend.”

But I didn’t know how to tone it down. Ballroom is all about hitting everything full-on, giving 110 percent from start to finish. I remember I was in the middle of rehearsing “I Can’t Stand Still”—strutting around the stage, doing flips and dips, and I was so out of breath I could barely sing. I was not hitting my notes and I was struggling.

Karen looked nervous. “We have to work this out,” she told me. Translation: get it together or we’re going to have to replace you with someone who can. When we took a two-week break for the holidays, I went home to Utah but didn’t go on vacation with the rest of my family. Instead, I stayed home for Christmas and sang all my
Footloose
songs while sprinting on the treadmill. It was the only way I could learn to get control of my breath and bring my heart rate down. It was intense, but it was what I had to do to build up my stamina. I felt like I was training for a marathon. The responsibility of carrying the show weighed heavily on my shoulders. I didn’t want to let anyone down. I didn’t want the show to flop because I couldn’t cut it.

When I got back to London, I was ready. I had learned all my lines and songs, and I could sing standing on my head if I needed to. I remember Karen’s face lighting up: “Okay, now we got something. We made the right decision.”

When the show started, I also started taking voice lessons. I noticed that by the end of the week, my voice would start to thin out. I went to this famous voice coach, Mary Hammond. She was a friendly redheaded lady, and she has taught practically everyone in West End theater as well as a handful of pop and rock singers. One afternoon I walked into her studio just as Chris Martin from Coldplay was walking out. She taught me to always focus on my breath—no matter where I was, I would practice breathing in and breathing out, inflating my diaphragm and controlling the inhale and exhale so they were smooth and sustained. In the beginning, I had to constantly think about the technique. But eventually, it became second nature. I was training my breath just as I had trained my body for dance. The more I practiced, the better I got at it.

We toured first before settling in at the Novello Theatre on the Strand. When you tour in England, it’s nothing fancy. I was in charge of my own travel and accommodations. Sometimes I stayed in RVs or in little flats. One time I bunked in some old lady’s house surrounded by her cats. I can’t even remember the names of some of the cities we played in. It was all a blur, and I tried to get into the rhythm of eight shows a week. It was relentless and grueling and very different from the life I had known as a competitive dancer. I didn’t miss competing at all; what I missed was the ritual and structure of it. There was always a clear goal, a deadline, a buildup, then the satisfaction in knowing it was over and done with. In live theater, you hope and pray the show doesn’t open and close the same night. You hope it has a long run with no end in sight. I had never experienced that feeling—competing is more hit and run. It took some getting used to.

Opening night, all three Ballases were there. Shirley and Corky were surprised at how strong my voice was: they knew I could dance, but this was something new. Even though I was no longer a little kid, I wanted their thumbs-up. They might have been my dance coaches, but they were also my family. They never wanted me to get trapped in the world of competitive dance. They saw bigger things ahead, and this was just the beginning. Over the next few months, my entire family—my parents, sisters, grandparents—flew over to see me in the show. I actually got rave reviews from the London theater critics, but it was my family’s raves that meant the most to me.

After the show, everybody would go out drinking, but I was always in bed by eleven thirty. There was no partying for me; I was the boring one. I lived in constant fear that my voice would give out on me, so I tried to rest it, eat right, get lots of sleep. I ate chicken breasts and whole potatoes like they were apples to keep up my energy and maintain my weight. When I came home after the show, Nan would leave my dinner ready and waiting in the microwave, and I would just heat it up. The Ballases always had a thing about not eating alone. Even if it was midnight, Nan would hear me banging around the kitchen, come downstairs in her robe, light up a cigarette, and keep me company. We’d chat about our day for about an hour while I ate, and it was our time together. I don’t know if it’s an English thing or what, but getting my Nan to say “I love you” was like pulling teeth. I came from a family where it was said often, and I was determined to teach her. So I would joke with her and grab her: “I’m not going to bed unless you say you love me back!” She would kind of mumble it, but I would insist she say it properly until she eventually caved in. I continued doing this whenever we parted ways, until eventually it became natural for her to say.

After every performance, my clothes were drenched in sweat. On matinee days, I had to take them off in the wings and put them in the dryer for the next show. There was no time to wash them! When I’d leave the stage, I’d have to go and sit down for a good ten minutes just to get my breath back. That’s when I also decided it was time to kick my smoking addiction. In London, practically everyone smokes—men, women, kids. I had been smoking since I was barely a teenager—at first, to look cool, and later on because it was what everyone did. It had a feeling of community to it: we all lit up together and hung out. At least that’s how I saw it back then. There was a comfort in it—the taste, the smell, the feeling of puffing on a cigarette. I couldn’t imagine
not
doing it every day. It had been ingrained in me for so long.