Living happily ever after isn't just a fairy tale for Sarah, Duchess of York.

"It's not every day that you marry the Queen of England's best-looking son," quipped Sarah Ferguson, who was in Utah County on Monday to discuss speaking engagements with American Fork-based Net Marketing Alliance. "It's not every day you get married in a glass coach."

And the 15-foot wedding satin train may be grand, but it may also trip you up if you're not careful, Ferguson told a captive audience of more than 300 employees of Net Marketing, a financial education company with which she has conducted speaking engagements nationwide since 2004.

For Ferguson, who married Prince Andrew, the second son of the Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh on July 23, 1986, and was divorced in 1995, happiness today means being in control of her bills; being there for her two daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie; and giving her time and resources to countless disadvantaged women and children worldwide.

The second daughter of the late Major Ronald Ferguson and the late Susan Mary Wright, Ferguson, 46, has an aristocratic lineage that traces back to William the Conqueror. But being a blue blood by birth hasn't diminished any of the passion, warmth and friendliness she exudes to total strangers, or her self-deprecating humor about her insecurity and fears.

"My sisters were beautiful. My mum was beautiful. But I was born as the child to keep the family together," she said of her early years wrestling with self-esteem issues. That wasn't helped by her parents' divorce, being catapulted onto the international stage after her marriage into the British Royal family, plus her weight gain, food addiction, and later her own divorce and near bankruptcy.

"Mum ran off to Argentina and married the best-looking man called Hector Barrantes. The day she left was the day I had disobeyed her by cutting my hair really short. I was 12. And I thought she left because I disobeyed her," she said. That's when food became a solace for her.

"The more the press saw Diana (the late Princess of Wales) as beautiful, the more I became the black sheep. The more the tabloids ran headlines like Fat Frumpy Fergie, and the more they said I was the Duchess of Pork, the more I believed it and the more I sabotaged my own cause," she said.

But she survived. Ferguson said she was 220 pounds when Weight Watchers International approached her in 1994 to use its program and later to serve as spokeswoman for the weight loss group in 1997. Through this post, she has participated in global campaigns for family wellness and the prevention of obesity in children.

She said she found strength by holding on to her faith in God, her love for her children, and her work with children's charities and other humanitarian groups, and not through antidepressants.

"Instead of living with fear, which makes me grumpy, mean, ... why don't we just embrace our flawsfi Why do we try so hard to be perfectfi" she said. "Seek to love and not to be loved. Seek to understand and not to be understood" is now her mantra, Ferguson said. "True happiness is feeling peace in my heart, the happiness that comes in short bursts, laughing with my children and losing myself in other children."

Rather than give into self-pity, Ferguson found empowerment by helping disadvantaged children and women. She has spread awareness of AIDS-afflicted children in Africa. And she has worked to relocate a group of children in Katowice, a city in the Silesia area of Poland, who are suffering from industrial pollution-induced leukemia to The Mountain Haven Centre, a charity she helped found in Poland.

"I'm the voice of children," she said. "We've got to educate children about AIDS. We've got to take care of the forgotten children, and protect their right to dream and hope, and teach them to be strong, secure and confident."

To fund her flagship charity, Children In Crisis International, and other humanitarian work worldwide, Ferguson conducts speaking engagements for groups such as Net Marketing and the Washington Speakers Bureau, and says she gives 10 percent of every business deal she makes to the Sarah Ferguson Foundation.

"By keeping our charity organizations' staff small and our administrative costs down to 3 percent, I can make sure the money goes to the children," she said. Children in Crisis was founded in April 1993 by Ferguson, who remains its Life President, with the support of two current trustees: Grahame Harding and Paul Szkiler. Over the years, the 15 full-time worker group has raised more than 15 million pounds, or a little more than $28 million, helped more than 250,000 children annually in 10 countries and its running costs have stabilized at $190,000 a year.

Balancing the conflicting demands of business and family life has been a juggling act -- but one that Ferguson has parlayed to her advantage.

Ferguson, who was reportedly millions of pounds in debt, has turned her financial situation around by launching herself into various sponsorships and promotions, mostly in the United States, starting with high-profile companies such as Weight Watchers. She also fronted a U.S. advertising campaign for the investment firm Charles Schwab, promoted the Sarah's Garden line of Wedgwood china and made television appearances for ABC. She declined to comment on the value of those deals.

The main lesson she learned from her stint with near-bankruptcy -- always ask for advice and let others help you control it, she said.

"It took me 10 years to get into debt and eight years to get out of debt," she said. "Check your behavior, and learn to ask for help. Not for loans but what you can do to change your behavior and focus on other things."

But Ferguson has other business deals in the works, including launching a new line of moissanite jewelry, which is scheduled to be in major department stores such as Macy's and Bloomingdale's on Nov. 3. Moissanite is a new category of jewelry produced by North Carolina-based jeweler Charles & Colvard. It is grown from a "seed" in a high-tech crystal grower.

In addition to writing a self-help book on how to get out of debt, five new children's books and a historical novel, Ferguson is also planning to launch a financial and physical wellness education company in New York in early 2007.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.