How To Pursue Your Dream & Make A Living As An Artist w/ Derek Hough EP 1167

This is episode number 1167 with Derek Hough.

Welcome to the School of Greatness.

My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome back everyone. Today's guest is my friend Derek Hough. He is a Emmy award winning choreographer and New York Times bestselling author. And Derek started dancing at age 11 and has since become the only six time champion in franchise history of the hit ABC show Dancing with the Stars. He has a new live show as well in Vegas that I'm extremely excited to go watch myself called no Limit.

Where you will go on a journey.

Through a true fusion of dance and music as Derek explores style ranging from ballroom and tap and salsa, hip-hop and everything in between. He's performing from September 22nd to November 21st, 2021. So make sure to check it out in Vegas. And in this episode, we discuss what drove Derek to pursue his childhood dreams.

What to do when you don't feel.

Enough, how to make a living as an artist. I thought this was fascinating, how he shares this, how to let go of being a perfectionist and so much more. I know you're gonna love this. And if you do enjoy it at any moment, make sure to share this with someone that you think would be inspired by Derek's message.

As well.

And if this is your first time here, click the Subscribe button right now over on Apple podcast or Spotify and leave us a review letting us know the part you enjoyed about this interview.

And inspirational story the most.

And I want to give a shout out to the fan of the week who left a review over on Apple podcast. This is from Kevin, who said Lewis's podcasts are like athletic tape keeps us in the game and allows us to compete. I get something good out of every episode.

These are deep and meaningful talks and.

Are useful to everyone. So, Kevin, big thank you for leaving your review and being a and a.

Fan of the School of Greatness.

And I can't wait for you all to check out this interview. So in just a moment, the one and only Derek Hough.

Welcome back, everyone, at School of Greatness. Very excited about my guest, my friend Derek Hough in the house.

My man, how you doing?

So good to see you and catch up on everything. I was, we were talking before this interview started, and I was reflecting on the conversation we were having, how much both you and I have grown so much in the last five years. And in the last couple of years, both of us, I didn't get to share stuff that I've been going through, but we've both had multiple layers of transformations. And you have been extremely successful your entire career since you came on the scene with Dancing with the Stars, six-time winner, two-time Emmy winner as well, up for two more Emmys right now. And you've got a tour coming out here in Vegas soon. But you've been successful since pretty much the moment you came into the TV Hollywood scene.

Right.

You've accomplished, you've won awards, you've been judging on massive shows, you keep accomplishing. But there are certain lessons emotionally that you've learned, especially over the last few years, that have helped you elevate as a human being. What would you say are a couple of the lessons that you've learned the most in the last few years that have really helped you with your inner world, not just the accomplishments and the success from the outer world. And then I want to talk about how you've accomplished your success as well.

Dude, well, first of all, it's a pleasure being here, my man. And I'm in the, I'm here.

This is the school of greatness.

Finally, man, we made it happen. It's amazing, man. So, I don't know, for me, to answer your question, something that I've learned along the way, you know, my whole life has been a competition.

Yeah.

My entire life.

Yeah.

Even from growing up. I mean, I had four sisters. I was the only boy. And so, you know, competing for attention, like, you know, hey, look at me, look at me.

And.

And then, of course, becoming a competitive dancer, it was always about judging, being judged and becoming, wanting to get the best and then being on dancing with the stars. You're being judged in front of millions of people, and there's this pressure, and there's like this. feeling a desire of wanting to win and be the best. And one thing I realized along the way that really, really helped me tremendously and transformed my whole life experience was realizing, and it actually happened to me when I was in my apartment in Los Angeles. I had won Dancing with the Stars for the third time. And I was a world champion Latin American dancer before Dancing with the Stars, you know, won all these big competitions. Peaked, you know, in that-- As a ballroom dancer, right? As a ballroom dancer, yeah. Traveling around the world, you know, I peaked in that, and then I'm on the TV show, and I've now won it more than anybody else ever had, like three times, and I'm feeling like super depressed. Really? And I'm like, and I felt super lonely. I felt just in a dark place. And I was like, what the heck is going on, man? I feel like I should be, like, buzzing right now. And what I realized, I had this massive emptiness looking at all this hardware, all these trophies, because I realized that my whole life, I really felt like success equaled love. I felt like achievement equaled love. And in order for me to get love, I had to become something. I had to be good at something. I had to be the best. And then I would be worthy of love. And when I realized it was like, wow, that's not the case. That's not the case. 'Cause once you, we all know once you achieve something, you're just like, all right, what's the next thing? So you never really fully feel resolved or feel- Did you feel loved at all when you accomplished those things?

For a second. Ten minutes, right?

Like that. God, we're very similar, man. Dancing with the Stars, like, for a good example, it's like the biggest high, you know, like there's like confetti everywhere, screaming, you know, everybody's happy. You're on Good Morning America, you're on your private jet, you know, Good Morning America, you wake up the next day and for the longest time I had this such a huge and negative association with New York because every time I'd.

Go there for GMA, I was so depressed. That's on the show or afterwards? After the show. So you'd be celebrating on the show.

And then you're like, okay, no one cares anymore. And then I was just like, ah, that way, you know. But what helped me throughout that whole journey was realizing that Somebody told me this actually, they said, Listen man, if you are in a field by yourself with no clothes, no possessions, no trophies, absolutely nothing, just you by yourself, you're enough. That's it. You're enough. You always have been and you always will be no matter what. And that struck a chord in me because I always felt like I had to have something to be enough. I had to achieve something to be enough. And I think you all can relate to that. deep fear of all of ours, you know, am I enough?

And.

Realizing that was such a huge shift for me, because then I started doing things and, you know, performing or creating not because I wanted to win or be the best or because I wanted love, it was just because I wanted to do it for the joy of it and for the love of it. while realizing that I didn't have to do it in order to receive love or to feel loved. Not just from other people, but for myself. And so that was a huge shift for me. And it's interesting because after that shift, I can look back at my career and I can think, oh, so many things just accelerated so much from that point.

When was this point?

This point was right after I danced It was actually when I danced after I danced with Sean Johnson. And actually we became second that year. And I remember feeling really deflated, really disappointed because I was like, sure we had it in the bag. But it was so good for me because it got me to that point realizing, you know, why am I doing this again? Why am I doing this? Why am I dancing? Why am I performing? This all just seems so pointless. and frivolous and used, like who cares about any of this stuff? And then I realized the importance of it, you know, not just for me, but just bringing joy to people. And, you know, I was in the hospital with my mom, actually she had fallen and hurt her head, and there's somebody next to her, and I was really constantly giving up the whole thing. I was just like burnt out. I just didn't enjoy it anymore. And she was just like, I just love watching you on the show. It just means so much joy. I look forward to it every week. And I was like, man, I'm being so selfish right now thinking like, oh, I'm so over this and I'm so done, I'm so burnt out. And because I was thinking about myself, you know, I wasn't thinking like, oh, how can I bring joy to somebody else? How can I bring joy to others? And it's so much more of a sustainable energy. 'Cause up to that point, it was all about me. I was like, I want to be the best. I want to get good.

That's exhausting.

And by the way, it worked.

It did work. We got results.

For a certain amount of time, but it's temporary. That's not sustainable. That's not a sustainable energy to think about you. It might work for a little bit of time, but a sustainable energy and a sustainable thing that will get you through the longest time is how can I serve this person? How can I give my talents or the things that I've trained for? How can I uplift somebody or how can I give something? And man, I just like, My batteries just got like rebooted. I just had this like copious amounts of energy and you know started going on tours and creating these opportunities, creating tours, creating, you know, show concepts and just creating all this stuff and then just so many things started to grow from that and it's pretty cool, man. It's pretty neat.

And we were talking beforehand about you've always been like the positive guy. Like every time people around you are like you were like the positive hey, everybody's happy, everything's good. And I would say I'm a very positive person as well. I'm always coming from a place of gratitude and appreciation and positivity, but sometimes there are things that will trigger us or affect us or that make us feel angry, but you mentioned that you never really allowed yourself to feel anger. And I think that's great to come from that as a baseline, but when something happens or you go through an experience that really triggers you or makes you angry, what have you learned about allowing yourself to express a wider range of emotions?

In general. It's interesting you mentioned about a wider range of emotions because there's a great analogy with like a pendulum. And you can imagine something hanging here and swinging side to side and you have a range of emotions. You have this side which is like, we'll call them the negative emotions. Anger, frustration, disappointment, sadness, resentment, all these things. Then this side is all the positive stuff. Happiness, joy, love, Now the thing with the pendulum is if you're only swinging on the negative side a little bit, right? If you're only experiencing your emotion that much, then it's only gonna swing that much on this side. So you're kind of having this like very like restrictive amount of range of emotion. So for me when I realized I was like, wow, I don't allow myself to feel like anger or I don't allow myself to feel Sadness. I don't allow myself to like to swing and fully experience this emotion over here so then I can fully experience these emotions too. Doesn't mean to stay there, right? You're not gonna like live in that emotion, acknowledge it, feel it fully and swing it and then fully experience that full range of emotion. And I realized for the longest time for years I was living in this this emotion. So I felt good. I felt happy. I was like, yeah, things good. All right. And, but what I didn't realize is that I had a lot of like emotions that I never really allowed myself to feel and to acknowledge. And there's a great sort of analogy for that where it's like, you know, emotions are there to give you messages. And, you know, if you're in a room and an emotion comes to the door and you're like, no, no, no, no, no, you lock the door. And another emotion comes like, no, no, no. You move the couch against the door. You're like, nah. And another emotion comes in, you're like, nah, too much. I'm good. Everything's good. Everything's good. Everything's good. And eventually all these emotions are just there. Like, hey man, we have something to tell you. We need to tell you something. And then eventually you open that door and all those emotions come flooding in at once and you go through this insane experience and you're just like, it's confusing, it's loud, It's hard to unravel. Yes. And so now I try to practice, you know, if I feel something, if an emotion comes, I'm like, I open the door, I'm like, hi, how are you?

Yeah, yeah.

What's up? What are you, what message are you here to bring me? All right, thank you very much, thank you.

And then they're like, cool, then they're on their way.

Right.

You don't have to hold on to the emotion. You don't have to lock the door.

With the emotion inside. No. No. You can let it in and then let it out the back door. Absolutely. And you know, there's a great expression, you know, whatever you resist persists. You know, we've heard that before and it's so true. When you resist things, they're just gonna keep persisting until you eventually acknowledge it and then you can decide what you want to do with that. But yeah, man, it's been an interesting journey because for me, I always looked at people who would get angry or get like as weak and you know, I'm like, oh, that person, they can't control themselves or something. And the truth is that, at least for me, in a healthy way, there's a healthy way, of course, of expressing that feeling. And for me, it's like, I'll go box or I'll go hit something, I'll go connect with something. But I'll just allow myself and I judge myself or shame myself for feeling a certain way. And I really noticed that when I allow myself to feel that way and accept it, then it dissipates very, very quickly.

Yeah, it goes away.

Very quickly.

That'S beautiful, man. And it's. I'm curious. What do you think is the. The thing that drove you to accomplishing so much from your childhood? The thing that drove you to accomplish you so much. And then also was the thing that held you back from experiencing deeper amounts of love. So the thing that drove you and then the thing that made you feel maybe trapped or locked inside where you didn't allow yourself to feel the depth. of love for yourself or from other people or whatever it might be.

Yeah, I think something that might have driven me, you know, when I was younger, I went to, you know, a few different schools and I would get bullied severely, get beaten up, and, you know, my neighborhood, I had these neighbors and they would, like, hang me up in a tree by my feet.

No way. Upside down?

Upside down, by my feet, for hours. And spit on me.

No way.

They put a gun to my head, telling them they were gonna kill me.

A real gun?

Real gun. Yeah, real gun, 'cause they hunted and stuff.

How old were you?

I was about six years old.

Holy cow. They hung you upside down?

Yeah, and sometimes they would actually hogtie me. They would tie my wrists, my ankles together behind my back, on my feet, and then leave me in the field. And I'll never forget, I remember there being an ant hill there, and I was just trying to move away from the ant hill 'cause I didn't wanna get ants all over me. So it was holy cow. And so even as I say that now, I kind of say it like this. Right. Not really sort of really saying it to the magnitude of really how bad that was.

Yeah, that's intense.

And for me, you know, growing up and thinking about that and carrying that with me, I had a lot of like fear. I was a scared kid. I mean, I wet the bed till I was like eight years old. And it makes sense because I was just living in fear constantly.

And.

Going and being from a fearful kid and then being like beaten up at different schools. I went to six different schools in a very short amount of time. Because I just, every time I would just get picked on and I'd get beaten up. And then once I found dance, I was like, oh, this place feels like I belong here and I love the music. And then my teacher, Rick Robinson, who was the most incredible guy, is from Chicago, lived in Provo, Utah. And he brought me in. He was like, Yo, Heavy D, you know, come on in here, man. And I was like, oh, he gave me a nickname. That's cool, yeah. And taught me about dance, taught me about life, you know, all these different things. And then I had the opportunity to move to England when I was 12 years old by myself. So going from a really scared kid, afraid of his shadow, afraid of the dark, couldn't sleep over at somebody's house because I would wet the bed, you know.

And then get picked on and made fun of. Yeah, yeah.

I would, then I moved to England by myself at 12 years old.

That's nuts.

So it was like one extreme to the absolute next extreme. But I grew up real fast and I suddenly became unafraid.

Wow.

And.

Part of the, why I was saying that was because, you know, when you look back at the time and I think about those kids who would do that to me, there should be a lot of anger there, right? There should be a lot of like resentment there. However, through the time of experiencing that and understanding and being curious, Right, because that's something I always also say as well is like we gotta stay curious. Stay curious with people.

Yeah.

Especially in the state, the climate with like politics or- Culture and everything. Cancer culture, like be curious, why did that person do that? What, why do they believe that? Like why? And so for me, when I look back at those kids, like I have empathy, like I actually have compassion for them, like wow man, they must have been going through some stuff. So it's like they had to do that to that little boy.

Yeah.

Wow. But I can also be angry about it for that little boy.

Of course.

You know, on behalf of him, but not hold it, you know what I mean? Just feel it for him, honor it, and then let it go. But I can't remember what the original question was, but I just kind of was on the tangent.

The thing that drove you to become successful in accomplishing so much and then the thing that, yeah, so what was.

Well, part of that drive, I think, was me. wanting to get out of there.

Yeah.

I was like, let me get out of here. And once I was in England, I just felt this desire to just become better. And I didn't do it because I wanted to prove anybody wrong. Really? I didn't do it because I wanted to like, that wasn't really my motivation. It was truly, I think my motivation was going back to what I said before, where I really felt like in order receive love, I had to be good. In order to receive love, I had to feel like I accomplished something and I was worthy of it. Not just for being myself. And that was good. And that was good. That was a good drive for a while, but it wasn't sustainable. It wasn't sustainable.

And what was the thing that held you back from feeling a deep sense of love?

A deep sense of love.

For yourself and receiving love. For just existing.

Yeah.

What held me back? I think it's just that belief system. That belief system and feeling like, you know, yeah, kind of the same thing. I think I was just holding on to that feeling of I'm not good enough. Just me as I am. is not enough. I have to accomplish something. I had terrible acne, all these things. So I would lock myself in a room and learn how to play drums, 'cause I was like, nobody's gonna love me. If I'm not talented. If I'm not talented. Dude. Nobody's gonna love me unless I have a skill. 'Cause I look at my face, like.

If I smile, like, you know, stuff.

Comes out, like it's awful. Yeah, dude, I remember those years. Yeah, so it was a lot of insecurity, a lot of fear of it not being enough, which I'm sure everybody experiences. But that definitely drove me a lot. a lot. And I had a lot of encouragement from people, but you know we talk about that sort of, we talk about like bad people, right? And you know, and I talk about being curious about other people. One thing that really stuck out with me that I heard that made me so curious about just human beings and the human condition is, you know, there's that whole word out there like evil people or bad people and it's just like, But that's just what it is. You're bad, that's it. And what I heard was like, you know, they're not bad people trying to be good. They're wounded people trying to heal. Because I really truly believe that people aren't innately bad, right? I think that I look at people and I think like they were once a young boy, they were once a young girl. Something happened along the way that created, you know, these behaviors or these things that have happened. And those are wounds. Those experiences they've experienced are wounds. And I'm not saying that what they've done, you know, things have happened, things have happened to me, and it's not okay that they've done that by any means.

Yeah.

But it doesn't mean that I can't look at them and go, They're wounded. That's a wounded person. And I hope that they can heal through that. You know?

What's the, how did you learn to heal? the different parts of your life. And what's the experience that you've, that was the hardest to learn how to heal?

To heal, I mean, acknowledging it first and foremost, you have to just realize.

That it's the pain or the hurt or the upset or the thing that happened. Yeah, acknowledging it.

And do some detective work too, because sometimes what you think it is isn't actually what it is. You might think, oh, I'm really upset about this, but then when you actually start asking yourself more questions and digging a little deeper, you're like, actually, that's actually not what's upsetting me. It's something that happened even before that, where actually, did I feel a little abandoned? Did I feel a little bit of abandonment? Even though I went to England and I cherished that, I'm like, thank God I had that experience and it took me on this course. But maybe a part of me felt like that wasn't wanted. And I never felt like that consciously. But as I dug deeper, I was like, oh, wait, that's in there.

Interesting.

Maybe I didn't feel wanted actually, subconsciously. And maybe that's what kind of drove me, that I had to be good.

You wanted to get away.

To be good so I could be wanted.

Ooh.

So it's interesting, sometimes the thing that you think it is isn't really what it is. You keep digging and you're like, Oh, wow. I didn't even think of that.

And isn't it interesting when you started to have all the skills and accomplish all the success, you still didn't feel like you were, maybe you felt wanted like on the surface or at a certain period of time, but you didn't personally feel wanted.

Yeah.

Like with yourself. No, and it's still not good enough.

No, I never like really truly happy with yourself, you know? And again, that's good fuel.

Right.

To a certain extent, you know? But again, not sustainable. You can't sustain that, you know? You have to not just accept yourself, but like, you love yourself and it's so cliche, of course we hear all those things or Hallmark cards, you hear those things and they go in one ear out the other because you hear them so often. That's why I tell people, it's like usually when you hear like believe in yourself or like love yourself, don't just be like, oh yeah, we've heard that before. There's a reason why we hear that so much. There's a reason why you hear it everywhere. At every show, every movie, every postcard, is because it's so important.

When did you feel like you, oh, go ahead.

No, I was gonna say it's so important and then to look into that, not as just a slogan, but as like, really look into that. What does that mean for you?

For yourself. When did you feel like, what age did you feel like you started to really love yourself? Not for the accomplishments, not for the skills, not for the talent or what you've done, but for who you are. our being?

Still working on it, man. Still working on it, man. I think that's the thing is like there's days when you feel or moments I should say that not really days, not prolonged times for me. I feel like now I don't let myself dwell in sort of self-pity if you will or like woe is me. But there's definitely moments where that ego comes in and that voice, that roommate comes in your head and is like, hey, you're a phony, you're a fraud. You're not this, you're not that, and you're seeing all these things and you're like, oh yeah, you're right. And you start listening to them and it's the great book Untethered Soul. We talked about that, the roommate in your head. And if you had a roommate in your house, who was telling you, yo, you're a piece, like you're useless, you're a loser, you suck. You'd be like, hey, you need to get out here, you need to go. But for some reason, we allow this roommate to, you know, live rent free in our head and sit there and call the shots and say things. So I think it's just being aware of that, but, so still practice, still learning. But I think at least for me, I started to accept myself a little bit more and love myself more. When I was being a little bit more congruent with myself too, because I also realized that I would say certain things, you know, to people, because I'm coaching them, right? I would be like teaching them on Dancing with the Stars and I'm teaching them like, Hey, we need to work on this, do this, and you need to believe this. And then I would go home and I was like, I wasn't living that. I wasn't being what I was preaching, essentially, what I was teaching. And I hated myself for that.

Really?

I hated myself for that because I was like, I'm a fake, I'm a phony, I'm a fraud. I'm not being congruent with what I know what is right or what I know is going to be helpful. So by being congruent fully when I say something, I live it. Then I'm like, then I can love myself.

That's true.

I really love myself because Yeah, there's no sense of like feeling phony if that makes sense.

Right.

What's the thing you're most proud of that you've either overcome or embraced in the last couple of years? Since the kind of since the pandemic.

Yeah.

A lot of people have uncovered things in their life. Some people on health or relationships or finances or their career path. What's the thing that you're most proud of that maybe people don't even know about that you've overcome?

That I've overcome.

I mean, or are overcoming still. Yeah.

No, no, there's, there's, there's been lots of things. I think, you know, I think, you know, when we, I'm trying to think about that, actually, just like, you know, it's interesting. The pandemic, Tommy, a few things. I'm sure it's taught many people, you know, a lot of things for me was being an overachiever that I am. It was a good moment for me to like, pause.

Pause, yeah.

And be okay with not doing a whole lot, you know, and enjoying watering the plants.

You know, and- Becoming a TikTok star.

Yeah.

Which, by the way, that's been a whole other animal, man. It's just like, that was another thing too. For me, I was like, all right, I take myself seriously, but I also don't take myself too seriously. And I think that was a good-.

To be a goofball.

It's a good outlet to just be my inner dork.

Yeah.

You know, we talk about our emotional home. Where's your emotional home? My emotional home is dork. That's where I live. But I think as well, something that I feel like I've overcome that's been I think letting go. Letting go.

Just the art of letting go.

Letting go, you know, and realizing that you not only can't control other people, you cannot control your environment, but you certainly can control the meaning. You certainly can control what it means to you and what are you going to do with that? You're in full control of that. And there's been a lot of situations where there's had been a lot of forgiveness from others or for myself or a lot of letting go. Of, you know, certain things not working out.

And just-- Expectations that weren't met.

Yeah, and just being like, hey, this is the is-ness. This is what is. And then when you realize that there's like this beautiful release that happens, but it is, but again, it's never like a magic pill and everything just happens and everything clicks and you're good to go. It's in daily practice.

Yes.

You know, you know, it's the physical fitnesses, the emotional fitnesses, the mental fitness. You know, it's, you have to do it every day. And I know, I'm sure you do too. Like, I know when I haven't been working my emotional fitness or my mental fitness, things start creeping in.

Knocking the face, man.

Yeah, yeah, you're like, oh man, I was not ready for that.

Yeah, yeah.

I wasn't ready. and you're like, wow, I haven't been lifting my emotional weight essentially and it bites you sometimes. So it reminds you, you gotta be consistent, letting the good things come in your mind. Yeah, man, I just feel like going back to the healing, I just think that when we look at certain wounds in ourselves and look at wounds in others, I really feel like that when you heal your wounds, you heal the world. You know, because I think that's really what all this trauma is. And that we're feeling in this world, it's like there's just wounds and we just need to, you know.

Absolutely. If we're not willing to heal the things that are hurting us, we're going to be taking that out on other people, whether that's actually reacting in situations where we don't need to react, whether that's holding back our love for other people or our generosity and our gifts.

Yeah.

Whatever it is, it's hurting other people by us not being our full authentic healed selves. And that is the work, man. It took me a long time to learn how to heal. Until I turned about 30, I actually learned how to start healing certain things. And I've like every couple of years there's new things that come up where I'm like, oh, I've got to learn how to heal this. And I thought I was done, but it's like you're constantly learning. But if we don't learn the art of healing consistently, then man, we're holding back something from the world.

Yeah, and I think the whole prospect of healing is something that's, you know, the difference between guilt and shame, right? Guilt is, you know, I did something bad and shame is I am bad. It's your identity and that's so, you know, terrible. So I feel like it's, when there's something wrong with us, or sorry, not wrong with us, but when we have a feeling or an emotion, We like to sort of look at it as something wrong with us, right? And we don't allow ourselves to heal because we think that's who we are. Instead of looking at it and being like, hey, this is not who I am.

This is-- Something I did.

Something I did perhaps, or something that happened to me or whatever it is.

I don't even hold on to it.

Or happened for me. And yeah, I can use that and turn it into something beautiful. You know, these problems, that we feel like we have in our lives and look at these adversities. I think Tony Robbins says this beautifully, but what if your enemy is your angel? What if your enemy is your angel when you look at my bullies back in the day, how are they my angel? Okay, well they taught me how to have compassion for people, you know, you were hanging me up in a tree. How is this person, this person who's like, I cannot stand being around this person. They're just like so annoying or, oh, I just, that person is your angel teaching you patience. They're in your life to teach you something. And so looking at certain things in your life as not your enemy but your angel. I think that sometimes that opens up an amazing door of empowers you.

Absolutely.

You know, in a beautiful way.

Everything's about the perspective on every event or moment that happens. There are so many artists, creatives, actors, dancers, people who work in the arts that struggle.

Sure.

There's not many dancers that make a full-time income.

Yeah.

You're one of the, I don't know, 100, you know, that are making like consistent full-time income in the world probably, right? At the level you're at. You're probably in the top 10, I'm assuming. in the world of like, yeah, you.

Definitely don't become a dancer to become a millionaire.

Exactly. Exactly. But you've learned how to use your creative artistry and also turn it into a business for yourself. You've learned how to earn a living, let's say, and multiply it abundantly. But there's a lot of artists out there, whether they be writers or painters or dancers or any type of creative actors. that struggle. They struggled to get gigs, they struggled to get their work be seen, and even just talked about, not even purchased, but just talked about. They struggled to, again, book stuff. What would you say to all the artists in general out there, whether they're a dancer or just a creative individual that wants to express their art in a certain way who is struggling to get noticed, seen, booked, paid for their talent. What would you say would be the process or the roadmap from going to making nothing to little to making a full-time living?

Well, I think we live in an amazing time right now for artists.

Absolutely. TikTok.

Oh my gosh. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. I mean, there's creators out there who are making millions of dollars And here's the thing, we were just talking about this the other day, and I was talking to a friend of mine and I said, you know when you get a reel, like a sizzle reel? Choreographers, casting directors, things like that, they might look at it, but then they immediately go to your Instagram page. Dude, don't say that. Immediately.

I know I do.

I was casting for my Vegas show and I was like, wait, who's this kid? Let me go check his Instagram. and I'm looking at this Instagram and the way I look at it, the way that, you know, perception, think of dancers, it's a real time real. It's a real time. So it's like, what are they doing now? Like, what's going on right now?

Yeah, this week.

I don't want to see your past 10 years of whatever. Like, what's happening, like, last week? Let me see where you're at. And, and, and that's, that's incredibly helpful. That's kind of where things have been going. So I would say, Stay up to date. Don't wait for somebody to give you an opportunity. Create your opportunities. You have the platforms to do that now. You really do, you truly do. If you're not sure about something, University of YouTube. You know what I mean? I mean, my girlfriend and I, she taught herself how to do Premiere Pro last year. It's crazy. She did everything. And I see that a lot. I see a lot of people kind of like, well, you know, I just, I must not get in these jobs. I'm like, well, what are you doing? Like, well, what do you mean? I'm like, well, are you putting content out there, you know, weekly or once a month or something, whatever it is. And I think that you just gotta stay on top of it. And also don't ever just never lose the love for it as well. I know for me, I got burned out of it, the love of it because I forgot why I did it in the first place. And I did it because I was dancing in my living room with my family. And I just remember it just bring me joy. And I love the music and I love the way it made me feel. I think that's partially why too on TikTok, I'm kind of a goofball because I'm kind of staying in touch with that sort of inner dork, that inner kid where I'm like, hey, I don't have to take myself too seriously. I can have fun and I can be serious and I can be deep and I can be emotional and I can be a leader and I can be a coach and I can be a performer. There's no limits anymore where you're like, you,'re a dancer and that's it. I mean, we live in a time where you can be whatever you really want to be and you can create your own audiences. And that's what's so special.

I think it's really hard to make a full-time living without creating some type of consistent content as an artist these days. If you're not using the platforms to create and showcase in a unique way for the platforms, it's hard to just be talented and someone just discover you.

Yeah.

Without you putting stuff out there, it's really hard.

You know, it's, That's the problem too. I realized it's execution. Execution is everything. Again, you know, ideas are a dime a dozen. Everybody has ideas. Everybody has like these like, oh, wouldn't this be cool? And then you see this guy over here execute something that's not even as good, but it's getting just blown up. And you're like, oh man, I can't, they're not even that good. but you're like, what? They executed. They actually saw the idea, they saw it through, they put it on tape, they made it happen and it's out there. Whereas your idea is dying in your mind sitting there. So keep it simple. Complexity is the enemy of execution. And something that I do as well is I book a date. I book a date before I have an idea. I go, okay, I need to It's time to create something and I just go, All right, I'm gonna pay for a space, I'm gonna pay for a camera, I'm gonna pay for this and I pay it. So now I'm invested. Without knowing what the thing is gonna be. You don't even know what it's gonna be yet. Interesting. I invest in it, that way I'm like, Now I have the pressure. Now I have to do it. You know, I don't have, that's like, I'll do it when I'm ready.

No.

You know, 'cause you're never really ready, right? Never ready. And that was something I learned from my coaches. I would have a few hours rehearsal and then compete that weekend and I'm like, we're a mess. They're like, the biggest learning curve is on the floor.

Wow.

You could rehearse for months, but you're never gonna learn the biggest lesson, which is like being in the ring or being on the floor. You have to have that experience.

And the more you do it on the floor in front of people, the faster you're gonna learn and the better you're gonna become more confident in everything.

It's you know, it's incredible and like immersion, you know immersion is huge massive. I mean, you know, you want to be a good guitar player, you know, you say oh, I'm gonna take a an hour lesson, you know a week. It's gonna take you years to be good guitar player. Every day. Yeah, well, Dancing with the Stars is a good example, you know, people like wow, they get so good so fast. It's like four or five hours a day, right? Seven days a week for three months. Like of that hopefully they get better. I mean, you know, it's hard for some other people.

But.

But, yeah, it's that immersion. If you really want to do something, there's absolutely nothing holding you back.

Who are some examples you saw in the last year who were, like, blew up? There were nobodies. There were creatives, whether it be artists or dancers or singers that you saw that blew up and actually, you know, have an audience and they're making a full-time income now. Do you have a few examples?

I don't even, some of them, I don't even know their names, honestly, probably, properly, because I just kind of follow them. But I've seen them go from like, you know, 100,000 to now like 400,000. And then you see, you know, they're doing deals and brand deals and doing things. And you're just, and for me, it makes me so happy because I'm like, wow, that didn't exist two years ago.

No.

That opportunity didn't exist, that person might not have had the opportunity to even do that.

And.

I hear a lot of people be bitter about that. They're like, oh, I can't believe that. And I'm always like, They executed. They executed them.

They took action consistently. And something you said a few minutes ago was about some of your most viral content was shot on an iPhone that wasn't produced. That was like, last minute, let's just shoot this thing real quick and put it out there. It was you being your dorkiest self, You're most like professional dressed like in a suit.

Yeah.

You know, production, choreographed for months. It's you just been like, yeah. Oh my God, we.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Which by the way, which, which, we, we, we. No, but that's what's funny about that is that, and listen, sometimes that hurts. Cause you like, you put all your heart and soul into something and you're like, nobody saw that. But the way I look at it is, I do a lot of those. Those are like for me.

Yeah. Right.

The quality, like, of course, like the content that I look at, I'm like, ooh, that was beautiful.

And if like 10 people see it, so be it. It's like the rain falling down on you and the lights. Yeah. So be it. Dancing on buildings and.

Ah, yeah. Exactly. And that's like dreams you had. Like, I love to do that. And then, and you, by the way, even if nobody saw that, the amount of pride that you feel for just seeing it through. Yeah. Is you know, that momentum carries you through the next thing. But you're right, there's some things where I'm like, I do something really silly dorky and it blows up and you're like, and then it's funny because then I was at the Kennedy Honors recently with Dick Van Dyke and Garth Brooks and the Legends, you know, and 10 people come up to me like, hey, you're that TikTok guy, right? I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That doesn't bother me. People are like, Does that bother you? I'm like, Absolutely not. Because it's just a new audience, it's.

New people, and it's kind of fun.

Because then you get to surprise them.

Look what I can really do. Which is like, Check this out, you know? So it's pretty cool. That's amazing, man. What do you think's gonna happen over.

The next two to four years for artists, creatives, and singers, dancers? What do you think's possible? I mean, that's really anything's possible, you know? Really. And that's very vague and very general to say. But we've seen it. We've seen, you know, it's been disrupted. You know, the whole industry has been disrupted. You know, the power is in the artist's hands now where they can do live streaming shows and make a ton of money, which is something they never had before. You know, you had to be physically on a show, on stage, doing something. And it's just going to continue to innovate. you know, continue to branch out. You know, I have some fun ideas, and actually it's interesting, a lot of creative ideas that I had, or I have, have actually come from TikTok, where I reach out to them and say, Hey, I love what you're doing. I have this project I'm doing on television coming up, and I really would love to use your talent for this project. That's cool.

There's something coming in. Finding talent online. Oh my gosh.

Booking talent for your stuff. 'Cause that's the thing too, I think sometimes people think that it's just like, Whatever, but there's some legit like people on there that are really good at what they do, top of what they do.

Yeah.

And there's some projects next year, early in the year before the Oscars, leading up to the Oscars that I'm working on right now and it's, I'm really excited about it because it's something I've played with for a long time but the technology has never been there and now the technology is there, so.

That's exciting.

It's pretty exciting.

How important is artists not competing against each other, but collaborating with each other?

It's become a collab universe now. It's all about collab.

'Cause you were all about competition growing up.

Yeah.

The answer was, no, I'm gonna win. I'm not gonna tell you my secrets.

We're gonna be the best. Yeah, you never collaborated. You were like, especially in the ballroom world, you know, competing, he was just like out for blood and barely spoke to people, at least for me. I was like, you,'re an, yeah. I was, yeah, I was very competitive. But no, now I love collaborating because.

I see you do collabs all the time now.

I love learning, like, you know, I mean, you know, just a forever student, you know, I think whenever I see something and I'm like, man, I love to tap or I love to do this. Well, I saw that, like, that drum thing. And I think for me, it's wildly inspiring to work with somebody that has talented skills that I don't have. And I'm just, like, in awe of them, you know? And I think that that's the thing for me, as I I always want to live in a state of awe and everything when traveling and people and just, I never want to lose that like, wow, you know, that feeling, that hunger. Because I think that we've all been there, I'm sure, where we lose that hunger, that drive.

Yeah, man.

And you're like, what are we doing?

What are we doing?

Yeah. So to remind ourselves, and I think that a lot of times bringing fresh people in with new perspectives and ideas, revitalizes that hunger, you know, so.

What's your process for, you were just mentioning about visualizing something in the future, wanting to create and choreograph. You've had these ideas, but now the technology is there. I'm curious, what's your visualization process in general for projects, competing, wanting to land a judging spot for a big TV show? Like, how do you visualize and manifest and attract so much? Is there a method, a process? Is it just, I think, you're good looking and things come to you? Like what's, what, you know, what is that?

I think for me, when I look back at certain opportunities, and I, it's a good example, during the quarantine, how certain things manifested. In quarantine, I, everything shut down. No entertainment, no shows. My tour, you know, the Vegas show was canceled, everything's on the back burner. And we're at home, we're chilling out and I say to my girlfriend Haley, it's like, babe, I was like, let's do something. Let's dance. Let's just dance around the house. Let's just dance around the house. I'll jump up on here, we'll spin around, we'll do a dip, we'll edit it on the thing, we'll learn how to edit on the computer. Anyways, we put it up there and then from that, you know, these guys named Nick and RJ who do Pink's tour and they do Multiple television shows they do everything they saw that and they were about to work on a project called the Disney sing-along and they were like oh that would be perfect for this so they called me up said hey we saw this video We would love to you to do something like that for this so I'm like great so we did that so you.

Booked a gig at home booked a gig for Disney and then we're we.

Edited the whole thing ourselves.

I saw it was amazing.

Yeah, Michael Bublé is calling me is like bro that was I love that. It was so great. We need to work together. I love you so much. And I was like, I love you, Bublé. I love you, Bublé. He's amazing. He's the best. Oh, I directed a music video for him, like, years ago. And we've kind of had this, like, little bromance from afar.

Still haven't met in person. What?

No, it's crazy. That's unbelievable.

I love it.

Christmas time is my favorite because of him. Because of him.

Oh, he's incredible.

He's like, and he's, by the way, he's the, he's a better person than he is, even a singer. He's Canadian, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, he's just a nice guy.

But then from that, it was just like opportunity from opportunity. And it just kind of, there was so many more that came from that. And now like an Emmy Award, possibly a nomination for one of those performances.

The Disney choreographer, or something.

That one that led to the Christmas one, that led to this. And then now we're judging on Dancing with the Stars. And then, so my point being was, you know, it's, you just, if you have an idea, like go with it. Don't worry about it if it's perfect or polished. Start where you stand and go with it because you don't know where it's gonna lead to you. And almost everything I have in my life that I look at, it's because of me saying yes to so many things. You know, the small gig over here, I'd be like, yeah, okay, let's do it. It doesn't pay anything, but I'm gonna do it. And then there was somebody there who saw that who does over here. So yeah, so I would just say say yes more. Say yes more and to enter yourself.

Absolutely. What's your thoughts on the law of attraction? Is this something that you study or implement in your life or is it more of just you have an idea you created?

I think that it's yeah, I think what you focus on is what you feel.

Right?

And what you focus on, what you feel, what you feel, I think that is what you manifest. And I've noticed that, at least for me, if I'm a little bit more optimistic and a little bit more, and I see the light and I see the opportunities, they, they, I see them more. Does that make sense? Right? I'm aware of them. I'm turning on that, like, I'm looking for them. You know what I mean? Like, I have my, like, filter on of, the possibilities versus, you know, if you're looking, you know, cynical and like, oh, there's just nothing going on.

I just.

You're gonna feel that way. Yeah.

You're not gonna try.

Well, you're just. Well, also, you're just gonna see what's wrong, right? You're just gonna see what's wrong. You're gonna see how this opportunity is not gonna work. You're gonna see how this idea you had isn't gonna work, you know, and go to quote Tony Robbins again. My guy, you know, he's one of my biggest mentors since I was 15 years old, and. you know, it's about that state. And I really feel like that, actually. I went to a seminar of his when I was 15 years old. Me too. In Cardiff West.

I was 16 when I went.

Really? Would you come here?

He was in St. Louis, Missouri when.

I was there at that time.

Yeah.

Dude. And first of all, we're like being.

15, 16 years old.

Yeah.

It was amazing, dude. Unbelievable. It was crazy. It shifted my life in a sense. I don't want to be dramatic, but it was like, I don't know what type of event It was for you. For me, he was doing this tour in the USA that was like this kind of success principles event where he brought in a lot of other speakers. Yeah, it was yeah, Larry King was there and Donald Trump and it was like all these different like coaches, NFL Super Bowl coaches and, you know, actors. But he came down on stage one time. I was maybe, you know, it was an arena and I was in like the middle court, if it was a basketball court. And he came down and kind of stopped right in front of me. And he was like, and I was like, is this God? You know, it's like, I was like, I was sitting down. He was like, yeah, no, I was sitting down. But I remember him being like, hovering over me with his powerful energy. And I can't remember what he said, but I remember the way it made me feel. And I was just like, I want to be able to create that for other people when I grow up. You know, I want to be able to do that for other people. But so when he went to the, to Cardiff and you were at the event, what did you experience?

Well, That was that. It was just like that energy that's being shown and also too is the tools to the state, just controlling your state. Yes. That was a game changer for me because being a competitor, and this is actually what happened to me, I went to the seminar, I'm buzzing, you're like, wow, I could do anything, wow. And then my partner at the time dumped me.

Oh.

And she was like the best in the world. She was like the one that everybody wanted to dance with.

She was like the 15 year old gem. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, you know, we were like in our little ballroom latt world. And she dumped me and I'm like, ugh. But because I was so pumped, I was like, let's go.

Well, who's next?

Who's next?

Who am I gonna find?

And I ended up dancing with this girl who got dumped by her partner. So we were like the dumps. Like we were like the rejects.

Right.

And they were the super team. They got together.

Oh, they got together.

Yeah, and but whatever.

You beat them, didn't you?

We did. Let's go, we beat them. We were at the Royal Albert Hall in London in this like arena, like a bull fighting ring, and we ended up beating him. So that was kind of a cool moment, but what I realized, and I kind of forgot about that whole seminar and the whole thing, but my whole life, it was ingrained in me. The state thing.

Yes.

Changing your state, just like your physiology, the language, your focus. That stuck with me for so many years. And when I look back at all my world championships or my competitions that I did, and when I was on stage in London doing eight shows a week and I was sick but I had to go on there, you know, I would do that. I would get myself in state and I would get myself in a place where I was like, I would deliver every time. And I think that that really honestly really helped me throughout my life and I look at opportunities Dancing with the Stars and they call me, say, hey, can you do this thing? And I'm like, yeah, I don't know how to teach. I had a really. How were you?

I was 22.

22. But I was like, I was faking it big time. I don't know what I was doing. I was like, yeah, I think you. I knew how to dance, but didn't know. Teaching is so different. So different.

I I've been salsa. You've seen me salsa dance.

I've salsa dance for.

I just saw, I just saw your, the teacher the other day.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. She was that to be. And I've been salsa dancing, social salsa dancing, not Latin ballroom style, but social dancing. I've seen you salsa dance, man. It's a different style. It's pretty amazing. It's a different style. And am I intimidated to actually be in the ball? Because when I watch Baldwin, I have no idea what you guys are doing. It's very different. It's a different language.

Anyways, I've been doing it for 16 years, and I can't remember what I was gonna say now, but it was. Listen, all I remember is seeing you I was thinking it was like my sister's engagement party. Dancing. And you were dancing with Haley and you all sweaty. Drippy sweaty. And I remember just being like, I had no idea Lewis had this. I did not know he had this. This is amazing.

It's incredible. You know, but being salsa dancing puts me in that state, too.

Yeah.

It makes you feel like when you move your body.

Yeah.

It puts you in that state. And I think a lot of people don't know how to get there. Probably as a dancer, you know, when you move in your body, you get in flow state, you're releasing negative emotions, you're heightening your vibration.

I think it's primal, right? I mean, you look at your body, it's, you know, I always say this, you look at a toddler, before they can walk, before they can crawl, you put them on the ground, you put some music on, what do they do?

They're like, Worms.

Nobody taught them to do that, nobody showed them to do that, it's in us, it's primal. And then somewhere along the way, You know, we would dance around as a kid, like on couches and stuff. And somewhere along the way, you know, we just got afraid of it.

We got afraid of dancing and moving.

And singing and dancing. We got afraid. Yeah, and when people say this, they say this all the time, oh, I don't dance. And my mom's like, well, when did you decide that? They're like, what do you mean? I'm like, well, when did you stop dancing? They're like, oh, I never danced. I was like, Really? Not even like when you're like a kid? Like, well, yeah, sure. I like goofed around. I'm like, well, okay, so what made you stop? And then usually they're like, well actually there was this one time when somebody laughed at me or somebody said that I wasn't good, and then boom, they just switch off that part of themselves. And they stop, they deprive themselves of this primal thing in us that is meant to move, which is why movement, we were meant to move.

Yes.

And it's the best thing to see, especially on Dancing with the Stars, It's one of my favorite things, like working with Amy Purdy.

She's amazing.

Paralympian. She's amazing. Two prosthetic legs. We're sitting there. We have no idea how to do this. There's no handbook. There's no rule book of how to, you know, dance with prosthetic legs. We're making it up. You know, we had to go through, find these swimmers feet that were pointed.

All these different things.

And my favorite moment ever was we just got done finishing Rehearsal in this Argentine tango and she sat on a stool and she started to cry and I was like, oh gosh, what did I say? What did I do? I was too hard on her. And she just said, like, this is the first time I felt truly feminine since I lost my legs.

Oh.

And it was so powerful because she just felt like this, like reintroduced to this part of herself that was missing.

Mm.

And I literally that happened almost every single partner where they were like, there was like this like reintroduction like oh hey remember this person?

Wow.

Remember her? Anastasia Lukin, same thing. Really? Yeah, we had this amazing connection where I actually asked her, I said, I was like what's your real name? Is it Anastasia? She goes no, no, no, it's Anastasia. And I was like oh wow, that's such a different I just see you differently instantly. Her face softened, her whole demeanor softened. She's like, yeah, Anastasia, when did you stop being Anastasia? She's like, well, when I started gymnastics. I was like, well, who was the girl before that? Dude, it was the most powerful, like, and she just like, it was incredible. It was so going back to that movement and how important it is and the physiology of our bodies, it's obviously I'm very passionate about it because I'm a dancer, but it's it just it's so helpful.

I'll speak for, you know, as a as a guy who grew up in Ohio in the Midwest, it wasn't cool to dance.

Right?

And and and tWitch talks about this too. It was like it wasn't cool for him to dance in Alabama growing up or whatever.

Yeah.

And I remember I didn't really dance. I don't think I ever danced in like middle school or high school. I actually did take a tap dancing class in high school for one semester and I felt like it was amazing. But other than that, I wasn't like feel comfortable dancing. Not like whatever, on social dances with girls or something like that. I always kind of sat in the corner. And when I was 24, 23, 24, I started to learn salsa and for three months I would go, I used to live above a jazz club. My brother was a jazz violinist. He's a jazz violinist. Wow. The best in the world at jazz violin. He's a freak of nature. And I needed an apartment. I needed an apartment and he knew of a person who owned this jazz club. He was like, oh, there's like a artist loft upstairs. Maybe I can get you up there. So I ended up renting this place for $250 a month. Oh my gosh. Little studio. And downstairs they had jazz music, but once a week they had a live salsa band come out. And all the salsaeros in Ohio would come once a week. And I would go down and I would watch and just be like, this is another world. This is amazing. The guys are just so smooth, the women looking beautiful. And I went down there every week for months and I never would step on the dance floor because I was so scared, so intimidated of looking bad, of being made fun of. The fear is crippling for people to try to sing in front of others or dance or do something like this. And I can have empathy because I know what it felt like. Finally, I was just like, I need to do this. Someone grabbed me on the dance floor. I was resisting it. I made a, I felt like I was making the biggest fool of myself trying to learn the basic steps. Right, right. Stepping on this girl, just like bumping into people. I was like, oh, I'm just this like giant white guy in the middle of like the sea of incredible dancers and everyone's got to laugh at me. This is like the self-talk.

Yeah.

And then after like five minutes, I look around and no one cares. No one's looking at me. No one cares. Who cares? And even if they did, who cares? Even if they laughed at me, who cares? And I went all in from that moment obsessing over salsa dancing, every day practicing.

Dude, seeing your videos when you're, I'm so impressed. 'Cause here's the thing, here's what's interesting, is that like social salsa dancing, it's the feel, right? And you're just flowing and you're just kind of leading and it's just improvised. It is. I'm not good at improvising.

Really?

It's not my forte. I bet you'd be great at it. It's not my forte.

Like whenever people are like, oh, you're.

Come on dance with me and they.

Grab me and I'm like, and that's.

When I choreographed this. I was like, Give me a couple of hours to choreograph this routine. And I'm always like, they're always kind of like slightly disappointed because they're like, like, oh, he wasn't as good as I thought he was. But my, because I'm always like, mine is very like choreographed and I have to like, it like work things, it's all about the tech, you know, all that stuff. So I have such admiration for people like, hey, let's go. They just start dancing and I'm like, ah, okay, great. so I love that, dude.

I think it's amazing.

It's fun, man.

But it is liberating, especially for the guys, dude. It's liberating. And I. And anyone listening or watching, if you haven't experienced yourself dancing in a long time or singing in front of people, one of these Expressions, when you tap back into it, like when you were a child, like you were saying.

Yeah.

It's gonna bring a whole nother level of energy for you in your life.

Yeah.

Your relationships and your confidence and just enjoying life. So I highly recommend. People to get back into it because the first first few days doing it is gonna be hard, but it's the freeing. Yeah, it's incredible.

My favorite thing is seeing like Super Bowl champions. Yes. World Series champions like come in and come on, dance with stars and they're like, yo, this is insane. Like how do they what do you what this is amazing and they fall in love with it and they find it so challenging and It's been cool to see like even just from like 12 years ago and You know, people have been like, what? Damn, chad, pasta, what? And now you were in the street and some dude in the football jersey with the beer is like, Yo, I love that pasta Dobla you did. That Sache cake was beautiful.

Really?

Yeah.

That's cool. They like the terminology and they're like, they're so into it because it's, they understand it and they appreciate it more now. So, that's exciting. It's been cool to see that like massive shift.

Yes.

In just, appreciation of this insane sport and artistry. Because dancers, dancers for me, artistic athletes.

The greatest athletes in the world are dancers.

Artistic athletes. That's sort of my phrase for when I look at dancers.

I feel like the ability to control your body and have freedom and control at the same time as a dancer, it's one of the most inspiring things for me to watch. That's why I love watching you and Haley, your girlfriend, because just in awe of the artistry and the physical talent that you guys have. It's like you're incredible athletes. Don't they say dancers are like athletes from the gods or something like that? What's the term?

I know you're saying something like that. I think Einstein or something like, yeah.

It'S like the athlete of the gods.

Or something like that. Yeah, it's something like that.

Anyways, what you were talking about before is what you focus on you feel and what you feel, you manifest. Can we talk about that a little more? Because I think there's a lot of people, whether they're artist or an entrepreneur or just someone that wants to attract the right relationship, and they want to learn how to manifest these things better. And I like the way you, you worded it. What you focus on, you start to feel and what you feel, you manifest. So how do we change our focus, our focus and our feeling so we can start to manifest more quality things in our life as opposed to the negative things.

Well, I think, and I feel like I'm just quoting my man Tony all day here because, I mean, he's my guy, but, you know, what's bad is always available, but so is what's good. It's always available. All these things are available for us, right? They're all there. It's just up to us. decide what we decide to focus on. You know, a good expression, actually a good situation is Kelly Pickler. I was working with her on Dancing with the Stars and she had insane nerves.

Really?

She would just get, we rehearsed and she was great. We began a rehearsal onto the floor, it just fall apart because the nerves just got the best of her. And so I said to her, we go back to the state change, and I said to her, I said, this is what I want you to do. I said, Don't say that you're nervous. Just say that you're excited. Because as we know, nervous and excited are chemically identical, right? The body doesn't know the difference. The only difference is our focus, right? And also our language, what we're saying. So when we say we're nervous, we're focusing on what's bad. We're like, I'm nervous because I'm gonna fall over. I'm nervous because they're not gonna like it. I'm nervous because I'm not good enough. But your body doesn't know it could be excited. So I said, Just say you're excited. Just say it. She's like, okay, I'm excited. I'm like, okay, now just say I'm excited. Just fake it. Yeah, yeah. Just say it. Don't even feel it. Just fake it. Okay, I'm excited. I'm so excited. And all of a sudden you could feel like all of a sudden her posture changed, her body changed. Now she was like changing her feeling. She was feeling excited. Even though it was the same chemical response, because now she's focusing on what's good. I'm excited because I worked hard on this. I'm excited to show these people. I'm excited to show what I've been working on. And man, that was the antidote. That was it. We won that season. And we would not, I'm telling you, it was crazy. All that work would fall apart on the day until we changed that and that became a ritual of ours.

That's cool.

Where we were like, I'm excited. I'm excited. and we're focusing on what's good. And so that manifested a good performance. Results, manifest results. So what you focus on is what you feel. So let's focus on like the solutions. Let's focus on the tools that we need in order to achieve what we want. You know, let's focus on what's good. I mean, social media will hijack you. You know, you're just like bad, negative, awful. And then you're like, why do I feel like crap today? Like, okay, well, 'cause you're focusing on what's bad. And so, yeah, I don't know. I think for me, that's been a-- don't get me wrong. I have to catch myself many, many times. And I still use that to this day for myself. My heart's beating fast, my palms are sweating.

I'm like-- Mom's spaghetti.

You know, knees weak, arms are heavy. Keep them off for getting when we roll down. Eminem, please don't see it.

So how do you prepare then for, you know, you've been on so many big stages. You've been on TV many times. You've been on big stages touring for, I don't know, hundreds of cities over many years. Do you still get nervous before you perform in front of an audience?

Yeah, I mean, I get excited now.

So how do you prepare an hour before a big performance? Whether you're shooting in front of just cameras and no one's watching, but you know this is for something meaningful. you're on stage in front of thousands of people, you're on cameras in front of millions of people watching from home. How do you prepare that hour leading up to make sure that you're in your best position to nail it?

Yeah, it's the ritual. It's my rituals. It's everything from stretching, getting my body right, I have a heater, I get hot, I sweat, I have to break a full sweat before I do anything. And there's something about that that I feel like my body just kind of awakens when there's physical perspiration and I'm sweating. And it's also again listening to things. Going back to focusing on what's good. I'll listen to a podcast. I'll listen to my man School of Greatness right here. I'll put something on that is nurturing and uplifting and nourishing I should say. And that gets me in the right mindset. The physicality is there, the focus is there, and the rest just flows. You know, I think-- you- put in.

The preparation and the practice so that you just fall through it now.

And when it becomes routine, it's reliable. You know, I know I'll be in that spot, I'll be in that place.

Really?

By doing these things, I know I'll be in that spot by the time it comes to performing or doing what I have to do, and also trusting that it's going to work out. Because I used to drive myself nuts. Really? Like, it's never gonna happen, it's not gonna work, I'm a perfectionist. That was the other thing too, I used to pride myself on being a perfectionist. I was like, I'm such a perfectionist.

What does perfectionism do to you?

Oh, it's paralyzing.

Really?

Right? Because it's like, because it doesn't exist. It's not real. You're never gonna be perfect. And even if it is perfect, you're still gonna think there's something's wrong with it, right? So you're living in a constant state of disappointment. Constant, 'cause you're just like, it's never gonna be perfect. So realizing that the perfection is the experience. The perfection is that is your heart beating fast. The perfection is you being prepared and giving it, you know, Putting in the hours and knowing that you've done the time, that's the perfection. Like, that's that feeling.

Yeah.

It's not actual perfection. You know what I mean?

Yes. When did you learn to let go of perfection or is it something you've always had?

Dancing the Stars. Really? Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

Because it was like, this person doesn't know how to dance. We gotta go out there and do something.

No, literally, dude.

It was really bad, but let's go have fun.

I competed before Dance With Stars, I was a terror. I was honestly a terror. Like my coaches hated me. Like, 'cause I was like-- Again, it wasn't good enough. It wasn't good enough. I was like, ah, and like, but you won. I'm like, I know I didn't deserve to win. I was like, I was off tonight. And I was so hard on myself. And it just was never good enough. And Dance With Stars rolls around and you're dancing with somebody who's not a dancer. And it feels like, It feels like nails on a chalkboard. Oh man. Because in that, in vallarmi dancing, it's all about connection.

Yes.

It's all about the feeling of it. It's not even like what you're looking at. It's like the feeling. And that takes years to get that connection going with your partner. That takes thousands of hours. And here you are, you're like, oh, this is... And man, I had no choice. I had to just like, okay, this is what it is.

Wow.

But then I look back on it and I'm like, and I had to change the definition of what perfection meant to me, which was the perfection is I get to help this person, I get to serve this person, I get to see their face light up when they get to do something they never thought they were able to do. Like those moments became so much more rewarding and things that I look forward to versus like, man, that felt terrible or their frame was down or they missed the turn and. Not really worrying about that so much. The first couple seasons though, I was still like that and I apologize to all my partners out there and they know and I love them. We're still friends. But I was a terror, man.

It's gotta be perfect.

I was like, let's do it again. And then eventually halfway through I was like, wait a minute, what am I doing? Gotta relax, man.

Has there ever been a moment where you went on stage, whether it be Dancing with the Stars or your own Some other show, if you're on a show, where you felt like, I'm not fully prepared. Like, we didn't practice enough. The dancers don't know their steps two hours ago. Have you ever felt that way?

Oh yeah.

Really?

So much, so many times.

How do you go out there knowing you're not ready?

Just wing it. Really? Well, here's the thing. The first two tours I did with my sister, I learned the whole show in two days.

Shut up!

Two days and it was on the stage where we were performing in and sometimes I was doing the routine the night before in the lobby hotel lobby before we were on stage in front of 5,000 people and it was it didn't go great sometimes. Really? But I realized I was like as long as you're enjoying it even if it goes wrong the audience are with you. They're with you. You know, if you go into this like oh it's the the audience feels that, you know, and so it's this, it's this, hey, that didn't go quite right and you acknowledge it, you're just like, hey, and the audience are like, hey, that's awesome, you know, it's like, it's like somebody on SNL laughing in.

A skit or something, you know, they're.

Like, oh, this is actually amazing. It's actually pretty fun and it's personal, you know, and it's, it's human, it's real. But also, too, being a dancer, and I guess is sometimes good in life as well, but, You know, it's, you're going to make mistakes, you know, and at least when you're competing, it was for me was about like, how well can I recover from those mistakes, right? How well can I, oh, I missed that, let's get back into it, and then let me get back on balance. Let me get back into, you know, my center. Because if you get frantic about it, if you hold on to that mistake, you know, it's, you become slow, sluggish, you're missing more steps, So you have to learn to let go of mistakes in a routine in order for yourself to get back to center. And I think that's kind of, you know, good in life.

Speaking of getting to center, when you have accomplished so much from a young age, for the last 15 plus years now you've been on a global stage, at least a national stage and a global stage in different areas of your career, how do you stay centered and grounded? and not allow ego to take over when you're winning everything and on covers of magazines and, you know, celebrity gossip, all the things, all the opportunities and people feeding into the ego, like, how amazing you are, how have you stayed centered or grounded, or maybe you haven't, you know, at certain points.

Sure.

But what's the process there to staying grounded with success?

Yeah, I, you know, for me, I feel like i've I've never got too carried away with all that, to be honest with you. I think maybe that's my competitive side of me where I feel like, like we said before, it's still not good enough or there's still more to do. Listen, I appreciate the accolades and I love hearing people who appreciate what I do. But you're never, again, I go back to the student thing. I'm a forever student. I love learning and I think that it's hard, at least for me, I think that it's hard for me to allow myself to get to a place like that because I always feel like I'm constantly growing and I'm wanting to learn more and I'm in this sort of state of like, not like, hey, I'm the guy, I know everything and like, you're all lucky, you know? Never like that. And also, you're never realizing that you're never as big as you are individually never as big as like the project or the show, whatever you're working on. I'm here to serve. I'm here to like, how can I make this better? How can I give myself to this audience and make them feel great in a certain way? Not how can they love me more and appreciate me? That's not it, you know? And I think that keeps me super just motivated, you know, to give. But that's also things to having a family, you know, in early years, because when you're a teenager and, you know, things are going great, you, you start to feel a certain way about yourself, perhaps. But, but that would be quickly.

Family keeps you grounded.

That would be instantly.

Little Derek.

Yeah.

Instantly checks.

Yeah.

Yeah. Never allowed to even go there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you feel like is something that's missing in your life that if you were able to tap into it more would give you more abundance, freedom, peace, love, intimacy. Is there anything missing?

You know, I don't necessarily think there's something missing. I think there's some things I can water more, I can grow on more. I think there's things that I.

Can.

Definitely improve on and dive deeper into.

What's one thing that resonates with you right now?

You know, man, I think going back to the idea of like execution and that's a good question. I'm just trying to think about it.

Yeah.

What'S one thing that I think you dive in deeper.

Yeah.

Internally. Something internally. Because here's what's interesting with me.

Like, because here's. Here's what's interesting with me. Like, because here's the thing. Usually I would usually say my relationship, a relationship, like intimacy and things like that. And I think that that's been something that's been missing my life so for so long. True intimacy, true love and. I feel like I'm in a place now in my life where that has, I feel like it's there and it's beautiful. I feel very like, oh, that's been sort of the, that's been a piece that's been missing for so long.

Yeah.

So yeah, I don't know.

You know, it's interesting your body language shifted, right? When you, this is the first time you sat back.

Sat back. I know, I'm like, this is my--.

But why do you think something shifted.

When it was in my relationship? I think it was in my language. I think it was like, you know, it's interesting actually, I think because there's a groundedness about it. I think maybe, you know, here I'm like engaged.

Yeah.

My body language here, I feel really grounded. And I think that at ease. At peace. At ease. I've like, of, of, feeling like if nothing were to happen, no other things happened in life, like I'll be. Everything's be okay. Wow. You know what I mean? Like, because of a. Of quality, intimate relationship.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a beauty about that.

That's interesting, man. I will say it's pretty. It's pretty hilarious. The amount of comments. There's just like, when are you popping the question? Like, what's the time?

Right? Yeah. Yeah.

You get that all the time, don't you?

All the time.

All the time. I think people should never pressure a man to make that decision. As men, we should say, this is a decision I want to make in this moment when I'm ready and lean into it because we want to make it, not because we're pressured by society or friends or family. You got to do this now.

Yeah, I know.

That's not the right thing for people. I think you can encourage depth of the relationship and growth and these things, but pressuring someone to make that decision.

Well, here's what's interesting. Like, usually, at least what I've seen in relationships is, you know, people, they get, like, in it and then they get married, and it's not a relationship, sometimes too quick. What they get in relationship, and then there's lots of trials and tribulations and things that go through. They go through a lot. And, you know, sometimes it doesn't work out, and sometimes it does. The way I've looked at it is, like, we've gone through so many different. versions of our relationship in the past six years. So my eye is twitching.

The stress of the pressure of getting married.

No, but I think we've gone through so many different versions of our relationship over the past six years and so many ups and downs and so many beautiful things that have really just deepened our relationship that I know that when that day comes, that there's gonna be no doubt that there's nothing we can't get through. There's gonna be no doubt that what we do is gonna be forever and a beautiful thing. And yeah, yeah, it's awesome.

It's exciting, man. What do you think is possible for a man when they create that intimate connection with someone, their partner? that they deepen and strengthen and evolve over time as opposed to being single as a man. What do you think is possible from you single, Derek, to now you committed intimate, you know, expanding growth in an intimate relationship? What's possible on that side versus where you were single, kind of all over the place, having fun?

I think possible is the possibility, at least for me, what I feel, what I see is, is just consistent consistency of happiness. Not just consistency in a relationship, but consistent happiness and consistent joy. Because an amplification where I feel like experiences are amplified because you're sharing them with somebody. You know, one thing I love about Haley is like we love adventures. We love going on these amazing trips and we'll go diving and she's down 40 feet and I'm like, oh well I gotta go go be down there with her and it's just it's really great to experience these things together and so for me, it's not necessarily just the possibilities of like what it does for like business or creativity, all these things for me is the possibility of just the quality of life that I feel like youe know, at least for me, I was I was sort of searching for and looking for in other.

Things.

There's there is a breath There's a breath, there's an ease, there's a groundedness that's there. And she's a very grounded person too. I don't know if you could tell, but I'm very airy. I'm like, I'm up here, you know what I mean? And she's very here, so it's a good combo. And yeah, it's interesting because I have friends who they'll be in this relationship or this relationship and they're dating and they're like, oh man, want to be in a long-term relationship. And, and I just said, I I said, dude, you gotta stop. Stop having the appetizers.

I know, man.

Like, meaning. And I don't say that as talking about women like that at all. I have four sisters. Like, my respect for women is, you know, but it's more in the sense of be on your own.

Yes.

Be on your own.

Yeah. Yeah.

Be on your own and, like, love yourself, figure yourself out, find yourself and. gain that appetite for like love and-.

Depth and deeper connections.

Yeah, get yourself that appetite for that. And it's yeah, at least that's kind of what I felt like I did at least, or helped me, you know, from being sort of dating, you know, a serial dater, to stepping back, being sort of on my own for a while, and then allowing myself to, you know, be ready for it.

To dive in.

Yeah.

It's a, yeah.

It's exciting, man. I've got a couple final questions for you.

Yeah.

Love our time together. I love how real you've been and how just open and honest. It's been really inspiring. Before I ask the final questions, people gotta follow you, derrickhoff.com, Derrick Hoff on Twitter, on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

All the things. Derrick Hoff, that's it.

Yes. Follow him on TikTok if you want to be inspired, if you want to laugh, if you want to be, you.

Know, take some creative ideas. I think inspiration is the wrong word.

I think inspired. Inspired to be a dork yourself.

That's good.

Yeah.

To be authentic yourself.

Yeah.

People need that. People need that, man. You know, literally, I'm just like, yo, just have fun with it, man. Be a goofball. That's part of life, man. It's okay. But one of the coolest experiences I've ever done is been to your live performances. I think I saw two of them. with you and Jules, but you're doing your own here in Vegas coming up September 22nd through November 22nd. It's called no Limit Derek Hough, right? No limit, yeah. No limit, baby. No limit. Let's go. So September 22nd through November 22nd, if you're in Vegas or make a trip to Vegas, they can see your show. Where can they get tickets to that?

How can they... Yeah, go to Ticker Master, That's right. Ticketmaster.com yeah and it's at the Venetian Hotel.

Okay.

And yeah, it's a great night and this show is like live band, the an all-star cast of dancers. I mean these dancers I picked from you know they won World of Dance.

Wow.

They were like first place.

They're on your show.

Yeah.

On the show you were judging. Yes.

That's cool. And they you know are just extraordinary dancers like beyond Of course, Haley's gonna be dancing on the show as well, and she's sensational. But it's it's there's singing in it.

It's like you're gonna sing?

Yeah, like it's a big band music. Actually, Michael Bublé, he sent me all of his tracks, his authentic musician stems. So the music just sounds so full. Motown music, rock and roll, you know, Latin salsa. Tango, contemporary, I mean every different genre you could think of. It's something for everybody. And it's just, it's a great night and we dance, man. It's hard.

You're sweating, you're dripping.

It's full out and it's so much fun. And yeah, I'm proud of it.

It's an athletic performance. It's like you guys are full on athletic performance.

Yeah, it's tough.

90 minutes, what is this? Like a 60, 90 minute performance?

Yeah.

What's different about Vegas is there's no intermission. Oh man. It's just like straight through and yeah, it'll be like an hour 20. That's amazing. Just non-stop action. But it's gonna be a lot of fun, a lot of fun. You definitely need to go check it out.

I'm excited, man. I'm gonna be there for sure, at least one night, if not two. I'm gonna bring some friends. So check Derek out September 22nd through November 22nd called no Limit Derek Hoff. You can get it on his Instagram and Twitter. You'll be linked up to it as well. So make sure you guys check that out. This question I ask everyone at the end, it's called the Three Truths.

Uh-oh.

So imagine there's a hypothetical scenario. So imagine it's your last day on earth many years away.

Okay.

You get to live as old as you want to live. And you've accomplished, yeah. You've accomplished everything you want to accomplish.

Okay.

You've lived the great life. But for whatever reason, everything you've ever created has to go to another place. dance, your videos, this interview, your book, all these things have to go somewhere else. No one has access to your content. Would you have a piece of paper and a pen, and you get to write down three lessons that you've learned in your life that you would leave to the world? I call it the three truths. Three lessons you would leave behind. And this is all we have to remember you by. What would you say would be those three lessons or those three truths? without being prepared. But what's resonating with you in the moment?

I think man, and I just, I'm just a walking infomercial for Tony Robbins.

I love it, man.

I'm telling you. But truly, some of the things have really stuck with me and really changed my perspective dramatically. And really in really dark times, really changed my perspective almost instantaneously. And one of them was trade your expectations for appreciation. We've heard it before, but it's something.

That.

When you really sort of apply, it's an absolute game changer. And that applies to everything. Everything, like your environment, especially relationships, you know, for me, like whenever there's a fight or there's an argument or something happens, there's usually an expectation that's not being met. And so you realize, okay, how do I switch this? How do I appreciate this person right now? How do I appreciate them listening to me or them being, you know what? They actually did this for me. Man, game changer.

So, yeah, that's number one.

That's number one. Man. I feel like, I feel like, I think that you're enough. You always have been and you always will be. I think that's important too, that it's not just you're enough, it's you always have been. And you always will be. I feel like that for me has been really powerful as well because it's just a reminder of like, hey man, that kid, or those things that ever happened to you, when you look back, you are enough. You already were enough already. And you are now, and you always will be.

That's big.

So I think that one and the third one, drink lots of water. Stay hydrated.

That's true, man.

Stay hydrated, man.

That'S a good lesson though.

I know, right? Stay hydrated. I go back to this one again because it's such a go-to but, you know, yeah, I think that, I think one of them would be, the world isn't, isn't happening to you, it's happening for you. That's another one that I've heard that was, so powerful for me because we fall into that victim mode, you know, why is this happening to me? Why did that happen to me? And it goes back into the what if your enemy is your angel? So I'm like, well, how did that happen for me? You know, what lesson did I learn from that? How can I grow from that? So those have been really key pivotal things that have helped me in my life that I would love to, you know, carry on and share.

Yeah.

Pass on.

Those are great, man. This has been inspiring. Again, I want people to follow you everywhere on social media, Derek Hough, especially on TikTok. And go to the show. I'm telling you, if they go to the show, text me or message me on Instagram or Twitter with a photo that you're there, and you're gonna be inspired. I'm telling you, it's gonna be worth the show. So make sure you guys go and tell your friends to go. I want to acknowledge you, Derek, for again, the transformation you've had. I think I've known you for like five, six years, maybe. Yeah. We've hung out a little bit here and there, but it's been more over the last couple years here and there. And it's fun because I see your transformation in myself because I see how I've continued to grow and evolve through adversity and heartache and. Yeah, things like that. And I, you know, I know other things off camera that we've talked about that you've grown into a different person, and it's really inspiring to witness. the growth.

Thank you, brother.

Because I think some people might think that you just had it all figured out and things are perfect in your life and you've got no problems because you're successful and you look good and you got this amazing blue eyes and all these things. But we all go through challenges and adversity and to know that you've been doing the intimate, vulnerable work for yourself, the inner work to improve, to grow, to be more connected to people is really inspiring. So I acknowledge you not only for the incredible athletic human that you are, the athletes from the god that you are, and the creativity you bring to the world and the joy and the passion, but for you growing as a human being and as a man. So I really acknowledge you for that. It's really inspiring, man.

It means a lot. Thank you, my man.

This is the final question. What's your definition of greatness?

Definition of greatness. Definition of greatness. Wow, my brain goes crazy because there's so many things you could possibly say, I guess, and that's probably why you asked that question.

Exactly. What does it mean for you?

I think, honestly, the definition of greatness for me is, I'm just trying to find a way to make it a little bit more, oh, I'm just going to keep it streamlined, but really is, is serving others. It really is. I feel like that to be truly.

Great.

Is to lift others. I think in any sense of the word, you know, in a career, in a relationship, in your family, and at least for me, that's when I feel the most great. Or the most aligned with myself is when I'm helping somebody. So yeah, I feel like you'd be serving in some way. And by the way, it doesn't have to be huge. A huge gesture. It could be a small gesture, just like listening to somebody. But yeah, I think that that would be my definition of greatness.

That's it. Derek Huffman, my man. Appreciate you.

Thanks, brother.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcast and subscribe over on Apple Podcast as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you.

Are loved, you are worthy And you matter.

And now it's time to go out there and do something great.