SOME WORDS OF INSPIRATION
Reinvention requires a leap of faith. And in order to take a leap of faith, Ofelia de La Valette believes certain self-truths (or self-beliefs) must be present.
1. Your life doesn’t happen to you. It happens because of you.
2. Reinvention typically requires support from friends and family. Others will believe in you to the extent that you believe in yourself.
3. Opportunity appears only when you are looking.
4. Fear is a necessary component of accomplishment. You will never achieve anything really great without it.
5. Success rewards us. Mistakes teach us.
Q&A WITH MARLO THOMAS
Three questions with Marlo Thomas, author of “It Ain’t Over … Till It’s Over!” as well as a social activist and an actress perhaps best known as TV’s “That Girl.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently interviewed Thomas via email. Here is an edited version.
Q: What was it about Ofelia’s story that really struck you and impressed you and ultimately led to her being one of the 60 inspiring women featured in the book?
A: There were many things about Ofelia's story that were fresh and exciting and inspiring to me, but what stands out the most about Ofelia is her fearlessness and her bold determination to realize her dream. Here's a woman who had been born into wealth in Cuba, but by the time she was 3, the family was impoverished, having fled to America to escape the Castro regime. And yet through focus and sheer grit, by the time she was 34, she had her own insurance company and a beautiful home, and was managing it all as a single mom. That's pretty amazing all by itself.
But what truly grabbed me is that she risked all of it — put it all on the line — to pursue her lifelong passion for dance, which was something she wasn’t able to do as a kid because her parents couldn’t afford lessons for her. So she basically started from square one — a position many women find themselves in — and it takes courage to pull yourself out of that and succeed. And Ofelia truly succeeded.
Q: What is your hope with readers — what do you hope they take away from Ofelia’s story and other women featured in this book?
A: All of the women in "It Ain't Over" — and Ofelia particularly — reinvented themselves in a methodical, sensible way, one step at a time. It's easy to have a dream — we all have dreams — but achieving that dream takes patience and smarts, because it doesn't happen overnight. In Ofelia's case, she began as a student in a cardio funk class — a beginner among advanced dancers — and she stuck with it. … I want them to look at all the stories as a kind of map that can teach them how they, too, can realize their dreams. And I want them to see that, yes, the work is hard but the rewards are endless.
Q; How have you reinvented your own life?
A: I'm reinventing myself every day — whether I'm working on a new book, or appearing in a new play, or finding new ways to raise funds and awareness for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Running my own website on AOL and the Huffington Post has been my latest reinvention. If you had told me five years ago that I would soon be part of the digital revolution, I would have just laughed! But the truth is, I'm no different from most people who want to reinvent themselves, except I do have a secret motto that comes from the actress and writer Ruth Gordon — and I have those words hanging over my desk at this very moment: "Never face the facts, or you'll never get out of the bed in the morning." And I really believe that. The facts — statistics, polls, conventional wisdoms — can keep anyone from ever starting anything. I think it's better to create your own facts. That's what all of the women in "It Ain't Over" have done. And it's the very thing that has kept Ofelia dancing!
Ofelia de La Valette was slogging it out on a treadmill when she heard funky music in the distance.
She jumped off the treadmill and followed the music pulsating inside a cardio funk dance class. She stood in the back of the class and watched the dancers in awe. Sure, they were working up a sweat. But they were also swinging their hips, smiling and looking like they were having way too much fun for exercise.
It was in that moment, back in the early ’90s, when de La Valette discovered a love for dance. She was 34, had recently given birth to her second child and was struggling to shed 25 pounds of pregnancy weight. She joined the next class. Timid at first, unsure whether she belonged in a dance class, she decided to go for it.
She was hooked. It was fun, helped her get fit, made her happy.
Within about a couple of years, she found a dance studio and enrolled in as many as 12 classes a week — modern dance, jazz, ballet and hip-hop. She was a beginner but determined. One of her instructors pulled her aside one day and told her: “You missed your calling. Had you started training younger, you would have become a successful dancer.”
But de La Valette didn’t miss her calling. It just came later in life. In 2004, de La Valette closed her insurance business and opened Dance 101, a dance studio for adults in Atlanta. She was 46, one month shy of turning 47.
De La Valette is one of 60 women (and the only one from Georgia) featured in Marlo Thomas’ new book, “It Ain’t Over … Till It’s Over!” (Simon & Schuster, $27). The book is a collection of stories about women who reinvented themselves, and in many cases, at over age 40, and in surprising ways.
It includes the story of a music teacher from California who, at the age of 56, decided to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a painter (even though she’d never picked up a paintbrush before); Natasha Coleman, a 35-year-old sales rep from Panama City, Fla., who lost well over 200 pounds after she was humiliated when she couldn’t fit into her first-class seat on a flight.
And then there’s 43-year-old Veronica Bosgraaf of Michigan, whose 6-year-old daughter, after visiting a petting zoo, announced she was now a vegetarian. Bosgraaf’s desire to make healthy, tasty and vegetarian foods led her to inventing the nutritional snack the Pure Bar.
Dance 101, located in the Toco Hill neighborhood of Atlanta, caters to adults with little to no formal dance training (but also offers classes for students who are coming back to dance or are seeking more challenging classes). With the feel of a SoHo loft and featuring Moroccan pillows and cozy seating areas and fresh-cut sunflowers, the dance studio offers 110-plus classes — they include the classical dances such as ballet, tap and jazz but also a diverse mix of styles including salsa, hip-hop and Bollywood with many classes mixing simple dance steps with a high-intensity aerobic workout.
On a recent afternoon, with de La Valette, pretty, poised and relaxed in her lovely dance studio, it’s hard to imagine how many challenges she faced getting her dream up and running. She is now 57.
She candidly talks about being gripped by fear the night before teaching her first dance class at the age of 44. It was a beginner’s jazz class — at Emory University.
“I had a meltdown, crying, panicking. What if people find out I am an impostor — that I have only been dancing for nine years? I didn’t see myself as a teacher. I saw myself as a student,” she said.
But as soon as de La Valette turned on a No Doubt song on the CD player and started teaching the class, clad in her black yoga pants, jazz sneakers — and her signature shirt around her waist and wavy hair down — she felt confident.
“I discovered I was very qualified to teach that Emory class. It was because I learned to dance as an adult that I knew how to teach adults how to move in a way that adults could learn how … I could break down the steps, like a pirouette, and I could teach them in a way that they could discover they can dance, too.”
One night after class in late 2003, five of her students cornered her in the parking lot: There have to be more adults like us who are new to dance. They urged her to open a dance studio for adults, and the group of five — including a lawyer, an IT guy and a marketing guru — offered to help. Within months, she closed her insurance business and opened Dance 101.
“My family thought I was crazy, but I jumped in and worked 12 to 14 hours a day teaching 17 dance classes a week,” she said. “I was thrown into the deep end, and it was like are you going to sink or swim?”
Today, Dance 101 has more than 20,000 registered students and 40 instructors. She recently opened a second location in Alpharetta.
On a recent afternoon, a gaggle of dancers raved about de La Valette and her dance studio.
“I have a dance background 1,000 years ago,” said Ann Coppage, who is 57 and takes ballet, hip-hop and dancer’s stretch classes. “And for some reason, after I got married and had kids, I didn’t think I should do it anymore … I have been coming to dance classes here for six years. Here I am dripping in sweat, but it’s also therapy for me.”
