Free Taking the Lead: Lessons From a Life in Motion by Derek Hough Page A

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