Joy 101: Ariana DeBose

[upbeat music] Hey, guys.

Welcome to the Joy 101 Podcast.

Okay, imagine this for a second.

You're a kid, and you love dancing so much that you go into a competition called So You Think You Can Dance, and you're nervous, and your palms are sweaty, and you get out on stage, and you wind up finishing 20th.

Okay? What would you say to yourself? "Huh, I wonder if this is for me.

I wonder if I should keep doing this." Well, my next guest didn't just keep doing that.

My next guest wound up on Broadway and was Tony-nominated.

My next guest wound up in a musical, a Steven Spielberg musical, nominated for an Academy Award, and won the Oscar.

How about that? Ariana DeBose is the person who I am talking about.

She is an actress who grew up with a single mom, loving dance.

She danced since she was three, and she was one of those people who knew what her calling was.

Imagine knowing so much that no matter how many times people hit you down, no matter how many times someone said, "No, not you.

There are 19 other people better than you at this dance competition," imagine that you come back, and imagine that you get Tony-nominated, and you are Oscar-nominated, and you win the Oscar.

I mean, there are so many people who are in that category.

They don't win earlier in life, but as life rolls on, their winnings come.

So this is a fascinating conversation about resilience, about bouncing back, about what is possible, about the heights you can reach, all of these things Ariana DeBose possesses.

So I hope you enjoy this conversation.