Did you know walking is an Olympic sport? You walk,
just walkin. Apparently, I've been
training for the Olympics my entire life and didn't even know. Like, I'm just, you just walk.
How do you even get excited about walking? Like, "man did you see what he did? He had
his left foot down,
then he put his right foot in front of it. That stuff was
awesome. He's amazing. The Bible always says that laughter is good like a medicine.
People would always quote that to me. I've seen it I don't know how many times. And then one day, God
said to me, "if it's a medicine,
why don't you take it to the sick?" That is one of the
hugest revelations that I've had since I've been a Christian.
Because I've done comedy for years now,
I've been on all the late-night TV shows - I had a great time but it wasn't until I
made a shift
from getting laughs from people
to giving them an opportunity to laugh where everything changed because now this gift
that I have - it's not about me getting, it's about me
giving to others. I did a show
in Montrose, Colorado at a place called the Dolphin House.
Now the reason it's called the Dophin House is because
they take care of abused children. Dolphins - whenever a dolphin gets hurt,
other dolphins swim around it to protect it
so until, until it's better. They take of children who were being abused by their
parents who are on drugs.
And I walk in there and I get the stories of these kids.
And this grandmother tells me about her grandson who was so afraid of his
mom
like, everywhere he goes he wears a Spiderman costume, like
everywhere he goes.
One of the things his mom has been doing to him - she's been pulling out his toe nails.
So I hear this little boy's story,
then I hear all these other kids' stories, too. Then they bring them all in so I
can do jokes for them and their caregivers.
Now listen: if it,
if it had not been for God changing my mindset about comedy
to giving people an opportunity to laugh versus
getting laughter, I'm telling you there is no way
I would have been able to do the show. I had actually become physically sick after a while
because we,
this thing had been going on, so not only am I physically sick,
but I'm down and I'm, and I'm hearing these stories - but I have to do this show because
these kids need to laugh. So I go up on stage
and sitting right up front is Spiderman in full costume.
He's sitting on his grandmother's lap, and he's, he's clinching her
with his back to me. And I get up on stage
and I start doing jokes. Slowly but surely,
people start laughing. And about 20 minutes in it, people are laughing pretty well,
and then I hear a voice and the voice says, "my name is Ronan."
And then this little boy pulls off his mask,
he like, pulls off his mask
and he introduces himself to me.
And the whole place is like, frozen - sitting still,
like in shock. He pulls off his mask, and he introduces himself to me as to say,
"here I am - this is my name."
He's in a room where everyone's laughing, and there's no telling if he's
ever been in a room like that before.
And suddenly, he felt free enough to take off his mask, and
I can't help but think every time I do a show, whether it be late-night TV,
whether it be at a church or wherever - that there's probably somebody in the room
on some level that could be taking off their mask.
It's not about me getting the laughs from them; it's about me showing up with my gift
being willing to give it to the people. Because I have a gift, my job is to present it to
the people
I feel like should have it. And if they don't receive it, it doesn't matter. I've still done
what I'm supposed to
do. My job is to bring the funny, fully
and wholeheartedly because someone in that room
needs to laugh - they're going through a hard time or they need some sort of revelation that
may come about
because I've opened up the room with laughter.
So that's my assignment. That's what I'm about. That's what I want to do. That's why I love to bring
the funny.
You should never argue with your wife because if you win,
you are married to a loser. Why is that so funny?