CHAPTER 7

A NEW LIFE

When I gave up dancing, I had absolutely no intention of EVER going back to it, and for two years I lived my life as if dancing had never been part of it. I fell in love with my first non-dancing boyfriend, Steen, a gorgeous man who worked in banking and I revelled in my new grown-up life with him; living in Copenhagen, going out as a couple, and talking to friends about our futures in business that we dreamed about. I loved the feeling that I was reinventing myself. When I met people I was Camilla, not Camilla the dancer. I was leading a new life – and it was fun.

Promises, promises

Ever since I’d modelled at the big fashion fairs in Copenhagen, I’d wanted to work in fashion retail. I loved clothes and the company I’d modelled for had promised me a position in their store. I knew their stock and had helped out in their Copenhagen branch when I’d lived there with Klavs. But by the time I finished college a few things there had changed, and they no longer had a vacancy for me.

I felt so let down and deflated – frustrated with the rejection after having been promised a job and then it not materializing. But I’d always been taught to pick myself up and brush myself down, so I just started looking for another job in fashion. And I looked, and looked, and looked – I lost count of the number of jobs I applied for – and all I got was rejection after rejection.

Thinking outside the box

I was starting to despair when my Far noticed an ad in the local paper for a position in a well-known estate agency outside Copenhagen. It hadn’t occurred to me to learn about selling anything other than clothes at that point, but I thought ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ – another cliché that has shaped my life – and I was really blown away when I was offered the job.

I learned a major lesson from this experience – and it’s one that has since helped me many times throughout my life. Sometimes we can want something so badly that we feel completely devastated when we don’t get it. I’d been shattered by all those rejections from the jobs I’d applied for in fashion. At this point in my life I was 100 per cent convinced that I was destined to work in that industry and I couldn’t understand why I kept banging my head against a brick wall. When Far taught me to think outside the box and look at other opportunities I realized that there are times when we focus so much on what we have lost out on that we become blind to all the other things we could be doing instead. But it was much later in life that I realized that, in fact, it was the universe trying to open my mind and guide me in a different direction. The education I got from working in the estate agency was so much more valuable to me later on when I was running my own business. I looked back at this time in my life and thought, ‘How funny: there I was getting terribly upset about what I couldn’t have, but as soon as I made that mental shift in direction everything I really needed fell into place. It’s a lesson you can learn, too. I believe in working toward the things you want from life. As I said at the very start of this book, nothing comes purely by chance. I also believe that you can work too hard toward a goal and if you’re feeling as if you’re constantly pushing yourself but not really getting any nearer to it, then that can be a sign that you’re heading in the wrong direction: you need to stop and turn back.

Nothing comes purely by chance

As my husband often says, ‘Chase it and you’ll chase it away.’ What he means is don’t squeeze all the air out of a situation. You need to leave some room to breathe and look around. Your dream may come true in a way that you hadn’t previously imagined. Sometimes there’s a bigger plan for us than the one we’ve become so focused on.

Things aren’t always what they seem

On paper the job was with one of the most successful estate agencies in the country, in a very sought-after area north of Copenhagen – but, best of all, it came with the promise that as well as learning all the ins and outs of the day-to-day running of the business I’d be selling apartments, which was exactly what I wanted to do.

Sadly, once I’d started the job, it became pretty clear that other people working there had been made the same promise and it hadn’t happened for them – and it wasn’t going to happen for me either. But that wasn’t the only problem: my boss was very highly strung! Everyone was terrified of her. Whenever she came in to the office, a ripple of fear always cut through the laughter and chatter that can make office life so enjoyable. She may have been a super-successful business woman and very good at her job, but she was volatile and fiery and if she lost a set of keys it was everyone’s problem. She’d have all of us scurrying around like headless chickens trying to help find them. She’d shout and scream, flail her arms around, quite often with the slightest provocation.

Going to work made me feel sick with fear: I dreaded finding myself in her firing line. And then, one day I did. The trigger was a problem with the photocopier, which meant the pile of papers I had left on her desk was not perfect – and she demanded perfection. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but sometimes compromise has to be the order of the day. But compromise was not a word in her vocabulary. She went wild. Nobody, and I mean nobody, had ever spoken to me the way she did then.

Respect yourself

I was close to tears but I suddenly snapped. I thought, ‘Hang on. Stop and respect yourself: this woman’s behaviour is out of order.’ And before I knew it, I was saying it out loud. ‘Why don’t you do it yourself? I no longer work for you!’ And, with that, I walked out of the door. She was shouting at me to come back and do my job, but I’d realized from past experience that feeling miserable and unhappy in my soul, as I was in that job, was something that could make me ill in the long run: I knew my past illness with pneumonia had been caused by stress.

Financially, of course, it was a gamble – I knew I couldn’t really afford to give up this job and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to find another estate agency who would take me on as an apprentice and let the time I’d already served count. I’m sure my parents thought it was foolish of me to jeopardize my career like this. But when I explained it to them, they started to understand. I valued how I felt above the money and when I look back I still feel proud of myself for setting those boundaries. It felt good to have shown myself that respect. The experience taught me that it’s quite acceptable to say, ‘Sorry, this isn’t for me,’ and I often talk to clients about setting the same kind of boundaries in order to regain their own self-respect. I’m sure most of us have been in situations at some point where we want to say, ‘No, sorry, I haven’t got the time to do that’ or, ‘I really don’t fancy going to that.’ And then somehow we’ve blurted out, ‘Sure, no problem,’ only to regret it and ask ourselves why we didn’t just say, ‘NO!’ If you recognize this as something you do, you need to ask yourself: ‘Am I setting boundaries?’ And if you aren’t, you may want to address this and start by saying no to other people. By learning to say it, you learn to set boundaries.

Rewards

I took a chance by quitting but I think I was rewarded for my courage and self-respect, because when I applied to three other agents in the area, they all offered me jobs – and the one I chose was with a company headed by a kind-hearted, charming and talented guy called Jesper. Working for him, I had the best time I could have wished for. He taught me so much and remains a dear friend to this day.

I don’t want to even imagine how things would have panned out for me if I hadn’t changed jobs. The thought of having two miserable years instead of two such rewarding ones is unthinkable. With Jesper I even ended up selling apartments, which is what I wanted to do. This whole experience was proof that it’s worth following your heart for the sake of your happiness. It also proved to me that if you are not happy about something you can either stay and moan about it or take the bull by the horns and take some action. If I had stayed in that first job I would have been so unhappy, I’d have probably made other people around me unhappy talking about how miserable I felt. But instead of dwelling on everything that was wrong I decided to look at the options I had: to stay, or to leave. Staying would make me desperately unhappy – but leaving had the potential of making me happy if I found another job, so that’s what I chose to focus on.

The job also sowed seeds for my future. Jesper taught me about contracts, mortgages and customer care – but most importantly about how best to communicate with colleagues. Along with having worked with a partner from the age of six, and later in Strictly Come Dancing having to work in bigger teams, this has really helped me in my current coaching career when I often advise others, individuals or groups of businessmen, how to communicate as effectively as possible.

Dilemmas

Toward the end of my apprenticeship, Jesper sold the business to two equally great guys who were now my bosses and who I enjoyed working for just as much as I had for Jesper. They asked if I’d like to stay on in the same office as a certified estate agent once I’d served my apprenticeship and was fully qualified. I was now 21, and flattered to be asked. But the question made me suddenly realize that the rest of my life was about to be mapped out for me: I would rise through the ranks as an estate agent. I might be hugely successful at it – but was it what I really wanted? Ever since I was little, watching English and American TV, I’d dreamed of living in an English-speaking country. And, when I’d been dancing, I’d hoped it would help me to do this. All those dreams I’d had with Klavs about living in London were still burning away deep inside me. He was now in my past, but England or the USA were still part of my future, I could feel it. I’d thrown away my dance shoes, but I still wanted to be doing something I loved in one of these countries.

The company wanted a decision from me pretty soonish, but I was still dithering when, listening to the radio at Steen’s house one night, a samba-style tune came on and I found myself up on my feet dancing along to it. I thought, ‘Hang on a minute! Am I really done with all this?’

Soon after that a Latin American World Championship was being held in Denmark and, after two years of not wanting to engage in anything dance related, I decided to go along as a spectator. Sitting there, watching the competitors – most of whom I knew – giving it their all on the dance floor fuelled that feeling that maybe I wasn’t as through with dance as I’d told myself.

No regrets

A few days later I remember thinking to myself, ‘When I’m 30 and look back at my life what would I like to have achieved?’ I asked myself to imagine my life in ten years’ time if I took that estate agency job. I would probably have a comfortable lifestyle, a nice house, a car and money in the bank. On the other hand, if I went back to dancing, I would travel the world, live in the countries I’d dreamed about, learn about other cultures and live life on the edge. Maybe it wasn’t too late to revive my dream of one day being one of the best Latin American ballroom dancers in the world or even to become an actress.

TRY THIS …

1. Imagine yourself ten years further on in your life from where you are today.

2. Start writing a letter to yourself listing at least ten things you have achieved. It can be as simple as, ‘I loved my visit to Italy,’ or, ‘When I picked up the phone in my new office in Manhattan.’ Well if you are living in Birmingham and you are writing about an office on Broadway, couldn’t that be telling you that perhaps you have some secret dreams that you want to follow?

3. Be as detailed as you can be in this letter as if everything you are writing to yourself has already happened, let your imagination run away with you.

4. Take a good look at what you have written and ask yourself honestly: what changes, if any, are needed to make some or all of this possible.

For me, well I looked at the letter I’d written to myself and realized that if I stayed sitting at my desk in Hellerup, just outside Copenhagen, I would not be travelling the world and performing on stage and TV or being interviewed for magazines.

Back to dancing

Doing that exercise led me directly to asking a few of my former coaches whether they thought I had been out of dancing too long to go back. Thankfully they didn’t seem to think so and one of them even suggested I should call a British dancer I used to compete against in the UK as he was apparently without a partner. I knew of him, not just because we had been competing against each other ever since we were 12 at Blackpool Tower, but I seemed to recall that we’d been pen pals and even held hands a few years later and quite fancied each other! Anyway, I knew exactly who he meant.

‘Why don’t you call him?’ my coach asked. ‘See if he’s still available for a try out?’ That’s when a dance couple meet up for the first time to see if they are compatible physically and mentally. It’s kind of like going on a first date but on the dance floor and without any thoughts of romance. You feel nervous and excited all at the same time.

I had always thought Mark was a great dancer, and to be honest I secretly fancied him, so without any further consideration I decided to leave this decision, which would hugely affect my future, entirely up to fate. My thinking was this: I would call Mark and if he had not found a partner I would fly to London and try out with him. Hopefully it would all work out with us and I would move there. If he had already found a partner, I would take that as a sign that I should stay in Denmark and take the job at the estate agents instead.

Now it may seem mad to leave such a big decision up to the universe, but this is exactly what I did and to be honest it seems that the universe, or fate, or whatever we call it, had a pretty amazing plan for me.

ASK FOR A SIGN

Ask the universe to help you with whatever dilemma you face. I even ask out loud. I say, ‘Please can I have a sign that xxxxx is the right decision for me to take.’ A sign usually comes back pretty quickly: for example, an email might pop into my inbox or someone will call me with something relating to the issue I’ve just asked about. I bet that at some point in your life most of you have thought that you must call someone and almost at once the phone goes and it’s that person ringing. I call this being in tune, being aware, simply noticing your thoughts, and I think that when you can do this you will find it easy to tune into the signs that the universe sends to guide you toward the right path.

Decisions in life

So I called Mark and he sounded very happy to hear from me but unfortunately he had found a partner a week earlier. I was just about to hang up, thinking, ‘OK. Thanks Mark. That’s it. My decision’s made for me,’ when he suddenly said, ‘But hang on a minute, I have a flatmate who’s looking for a partner. Why not try out with him?’

His name was Brendan Cole.