Ryan Gossling Knows About Joy

If you didn’t watch The Oscars last night, you missed an all-time Oscar moment – Ryan Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie (embedded below). It was joyous, and you know how I feel about bringing and spreading joy in the world from my Moth StorySLAM where I told about my harrowing hospitalization years ago (watch/listen here if you’re not familiar).

Ryan Gosling, let’s face it, has everything. Handsome. Famous. Wealthy. Funny, but also serious. Ripped abs. And last night we learned, oh, crap, this guy can also sing …and looks good in a pink sequined suit. He made the “goth girl” (Billie Eillish) laugh (look over his left shoulder as he starts singing) as well as the “head cheerleader” (Margot Robbie) …honestly, she’s a great actress, but that laugh was without a doubt a genuine couldn’t-keep-from-laughing type laugh. He had Emma Stone singing along with him. A male dancer kissed him on the cheek, he broke boards with karate chops, and he hit nearly every note while remembering complex choreography (I guess we knew he had that skill from La La Land) and looked like he was having a blast doing it.

Time will tell if I’m wrong, but he looks like a guy who realizes moments like this don’t come along often and don’t happen for 99.9999999% of humanity. He’s making the most of it and he’s letting us have fun with him.

I admire that. I try to live with joy and spread joy. Life is too short (as I almost learned, years ago) and all the good things happen when you’re doing them with passion, creativity and …am I using this word too much …joy!

What if Ryan Gossling had said, “um, no, I don’t think that pink sequined suit is really good for my image and, um, singing and dancing …how much dancing?!?!?!  I’m going to need a big paycheck for that to happen and, um, that’s a pretty long song …can we edit to under 2-minutes?”

Instead he said yes …pink suit works …yes, have some dancers lift me up and carry me around …yes, let’s have Mark Ronson and Slash on stage with me. Yes, I’ll go into the audience and sing along with the biggest Hollywood stars and directors. Yes, I’ll take the camera man by the hand and guide him onstage with me like I’m bringing along every breathless middle-aged soccer-mom that still watches the Oscars and awards shows.

I loved every minute. My wife loved every minute. My wife called my daughter down from her bedroom and  said, “OMG, you have to watch this!!!” And we watched it again with big smiles on our faces.

Thank you, Ryan Gossling. Despite everything you have, you’re not taking it for granted and you’re having a ton of fun and letting us have fun with you.

You and I are not Ryan Gossling, but we can do what he does in our own sphere of influence. We all know people that do this. I try. When interviewing for a job in ad sales at a newspaper company, on the make-or-break interview, I created three newspaper front pages with headlines saying what a great hire that I was for the company. It got talked about the entire time I worked there. For another job, I created a full blown Power Point about my life, career, and portfolio. Another I bought my favorite books, wrapped them up, and included a tiny, 99-cent notebook and said the purpose of the gift was for them to know three books that had a tremendous impact on my career (so they can know what makes me tick at work) and the notebook was for them, when they think of something I should know, to jot it down.

Sometimes it’s just remembering to bring my world-famous salsa without being asked. Sometimes it’s writing a funny version of the “roses are red, violets are blue…” poem when writing and Email to a client or co-worker. I gave a eulogy once and handed out 300+ wooden coins and for a wedding toast I had a TV remote control engraved as a gift. It’s not bragging, it’s just showing you, in any situation, just ask yourself, hey, what can I do to make this moment a little better or bigger?

Those are just a few, but I try to bring joy. I can (and should) do better … like with my wife and family who I need to know I don’t take them for granted.  I try to shift a mindset and not be same-ol’, same-ol’. I don’t know if one of my oldest friends influenced me, or I influenced him, or maybe we became friends because we both like to bring some “wow” to a situation, but his entire brand, Team Jetpack, has the motto, “We Change Moods.”

It doesn’t matter if you and I don’t look like Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie. What Gossling did last night wasn’t about his handsome-ness. It was about what’s in his head and heart. He’s beautiful on the outside. But I’m guessing he might be even better looking on the inside.

We don’t have to be Hollywood stara to be a star to everyone in our lives.

As Shakespeare said, “all the world’s a stage.”  So start doing things that’ll get you standing ovations.

Do things with “Kennergy”!

https://youtu.be/wmG0983hPUs?si=x_2vjLlL6FbLKRbn