FOREWORD

Hi, and thank you for picking up my book. It’s about living a life we enjoy, making dreams comes true, and the fact that you’re about to read my story is one of my dreams come true. As a little girl I loved reading and having stories read to me, and I dreamed of one day writing a book of my own; but, of course, to do that, I had to have something to write about, and although I didn’t know it at the time, my own life, which is based on making my dreams come true, turned out to be the perfect subject.

My first dream was to be on the stage. I wanted to dance or act, and with years of hard work – practising dance every night after school, earning my own money to help with the huge cost of training, and leaving home at 16 to improve my chances – I eventually became one of the world’s top professional ballroom dancers. That dream coming true then led to my big break on the UK’s Strictly Come Dancing (the British version of the US Dancing with the Stars) and a second career as a TV personality, and then a third as an actor.

Along the way I suffered every kind of hardship. I lived on next to no money, coped with a major public heartbreak, and almost had my career as a professional dancer pulled apart, but I never stopped believing that as long as I carried on working toward my goal, my dreams of success would eventually come true.

In my darkest times, I needed professional help and turned to a life coach to keep me on track – and, inspired by her and others who I met along my journey, people like Olympic gold medalist and one of my Strictly partners Roger Black, I am now a life coach, too. And that’s fulfilling another dream – helping other people to believe in their dreams and take the action they need in order to succeed and make those dreams come true.

In this book, I’m going to share with you the most important lessons I’ve learned and some of the tools I’ve used – and I hope that, whatever your dream is, I can inspire you to take action toward it and more importantly find the inner happiness you deserve.