October 31, 2025 • 49 mins
What if a pen could make fear honest, grief bearable, and confidence repeatable? That’s the thread we pull with John Dedakis—former White House correspondent, longtime CNN editor, award-winning novelist, and daily journaler—who maps a clear route from anxiety to agency through the written word. We dig into his “fear continuum” and why courage isn’t the absence of fear but the decision to move with it. The payoff, he argues, is confidence built through small reps, whether you’re asking a stranger a hard question or facing a blank page at dawn.
We talk about writing as a healing practice, especially for men who were taught to numb rather than feel. John shares how grief counseling and decades of journaling helped him separate signals from stories, turning raw anger into insight instead of corrosion. He explains why handwriting slows the mind enough to focus, how the subconscious slips onto the page when you stop trying to sound “writerly,” and why presence beats regret and worry every time. Along the way, he shows how “write what you know” can turn personal loss into powerful fiction, and what he learned by writing from a female perspective with the help of candid beta readers.
Relationships come into sharp relief: listening over performing, confidence without meanness, boundaries that protect both people, and the trap of neediness when we ask someone else to complete us. We connect these dots to craft, creativity, and daily choices—fewer third drinks, smarter mornings, steadier decisions. If you’re ready to trade perfection for progress and use journaling, reflection, and breath to build self-awareness, this conversation offers a practical blueprint you can start today.
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review with your biggest insight so we can keep these conversations going.
Want to be a guest on Playing Injured? Send Joshua Dillingham a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/playinginjured
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:07):
One of the main focuses of today's episode is
how we can use writing as a wayto heal.
And today's guest is John Daday,who was a journalist for 45
years, including a stint as aWhite House correspondent during
the Reagan era.
John is also a former editor onCNN's The Situation Room with
Wolf Blazer.
(00:27):
John is now a writing coach.
He's an award-winning novelist.
And we also talk about howwriting can help with grief,
with self-awareness, withunderstanding who we are.
We also talk about fear and howtaking small acts of courage is
how we build confidence.
And then we also talk aboutworking through our feelings,
(00:49):
forgiveness, letting go, thingsthat men need to work on.
Today's episode was amazing, andI can't wait for you guys to
take a listen.
I started off like this everyepisode.
It's who is John and how does hespend his time today?
SPEAKER_00 (01:04):
Whoa, man.
John's old.
He's been around a while.
So there's been a lot of a lotof a lot of progress, I guess
you could say.
Born in La Crosse, Wisconsin,intended to go into law with my
dad, who was a lawyer, ended upgoing into journalism.
As you said, for 45 years, Icovered the White House when
(01:26):
Reagan was president for thelast three years of his
presidency.
Ended my uh journalism career atCNN, where I was an editor for
25 years.
And while I was at CNN, Istarted writing novels.
And that was basically I startedwriting them 30 years ago, but
it took me 10 years to get theagent that I've got.
(01:47):
And that progress, that processof trial and error, mostly
error, got me to the point whereI was able to deconstruct the
writing process.
So I've got six mystery suspensethriller novels under my belt,
and I now teach people how towrite novels and memoirs, and
I'm a one-on-one writing coach.
SPEAKER_01 (02:08):
Okay.
So I I'll be making a call toyou in the future about works.
SPEAKER_00 (02:13):
It works for me.
SPEAKER_01 (02:15):
But you mentioned something about even obviously,
you know, saying you owed andexperienced, but more so that
you've evolved kind of overtime.
SPEAKER_00 (02:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (02:25):
Through trial and error, a lot of error.
A lot of us are afraid of erroror fear.
SPEAKER_00 (02:32):
Right?
Yep.
Yep.
Fear is fear is a huge, hugething.
SPEAKER_01 (02:36):
Yeah.
Walk me through that.
SPEAKER_00 (02:41):
We've we spend a lot of our time regretting the past
and fearing the future, andwe're no good in the moment.
And fear is there the I I teacha class actually on teaching, on
facing your fears.
And what I've discovered in mylong life is there's I call it
the fear continuum.
(03:02):
There's recklessness, that's theabsence of fear.
We just go and do it.
There's caution, that's countingthe cost.
Is this going to kill me,bankrupt me?
Am I going to lose my health?
There's cowardice.
We know what we should do whenwe freeze.
And there's courage, and that'sthe goal.
But in order to be courageous,it doesn't mean the fear goes
(03:25):
away.
It means facing your fear andgoing forward anyway, like the
guys did who stormed the beachesof Normandy.
Were they afraid?
They were terrified and theywent forward anyway.
That's fear in action.
And so it's a matter of learninghow to do that, whether it's
living or writing or whatever.
SPEAKER_01 (03:45):
Yeah.
And I feel like folks know that,right?
SPEAKER_00 (03:50):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (03:50):
It's I gotta do it.
What any tricks, anything you'vedone to have that courage, that
courageous moment in times whereyou felt fear, what does that
look like for you?
SPEAKER_00 (04:03):
I can give you one quick example from when I was
covering the 1984 presidentialprimary.
I was in uh Manchester, NewHampshire, and my assignment for
the day was to do person on thestreet interviews.
You know, who are you gonna votefor for president?
Right.
It's a pretty simple question.
It took me 20 minutes to get thecourage to ask the question for
(04:23):
the first time.
And I mean, I look back on itand was like, what was I afraid
of?
You know, I was afraid thatsomebody was gonna get pissed at
me because it was six in themorning and you know, they
hadn't had their coffee yet orwhatever.
But what I discovered is thatonce you get into the rhythm,
once you do that thing thatyou're afraid of, there's a
byproduct.
(04:44):
The byproduct is confidence.
You know, no one shot at you.
It, you know, the world didn'tblow up, and you were able to do
it.
And it makes it easier to do itthe next time and so on.
SPEAKER_01 (04:54):
Yeah.
You just made me think aboutit's uh a book called Six
Pillars of Self-Esteem.
One of them isself-assertiveness.
That's one of the pillars.
And a lot of people believe, oh,this person is self-assertive
because that's just who theyare, instead of thinking, no,
they became that way by takingthese small moments of
(05:17):
courageous actions, and thenover time they become this
person that seems courageous orself-assertive and not realizing
that they just had to take thesemoments, right?
SPEAKER_00 (05:29):
And that's true whether you're an extrovert or
an introvert.
I mean, extroverts do tend to beout there a little bit more.
Introverts, obviously, they're alittle more uh reserved, and
that doesn't mean they're shy.
Shyness is is basicallyfear-based.
I know plenty of people,including my wife, who is an
introvert, but she's gottremendous confidence as well.
SPEAKER_01 (05:53):
Yep.
Yeah.
And you know what else?
I'm sitting here thinking aboutit, is that like a lot a lot of
things are out of your controlanyway.
Imagine you talk into somebodysix in the morning and they're
they just had a terriblemorning, and you ask them a
question about who they'revoting for, and it's the last
thing they want to hear, andthey can curse you out, and then
(06:15):
you think it's your fault, butit's really nothing that she
could do, right?
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (06:19):
That's right.
I'm just there.
I'm just asking a question, andI've got every right to do that,
but you know, fear exaggeratesand it tells you it lies to you.
It tells you this is terrible,you're awful, you have no
business being here, and youcan, you know, and f when it
comes to writing, you can talkyourself out of even getting
started because you're listeningto your fears and they're lying
(06:39):
to you.
SPEAKER_01 (06:40):
Yeah.
Talk to us about writing.
Uh you know, I I feel like nowmore than ever, I think it's
it's very important to write,especially with AI, with our
phones.
I do think it's a differencebetween typing some typing notes
on your phone versus writingthem out, or or at least
journaling.
(07:00):
You know, I've I've done both.
I've journaled on my phone, I'vejournaled on paper.
I just feel like I writedifferently when I'm actually
writing.
It's almost like I have thesephilosophical thoughts that I
didn't know I had when Iactually write.
SPEAKER_00 (07:18):
Sure, but you know what I think is happening is
that the act of writing, youknow, with a pen and a paper,
that slows down the process.
Your mind is going a mile aminute, but it can't get through
the pen fast enough.
And so that slows it down and itmakes you, you know, just
inadvertently focus a little bitmore on what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01 (07:37):
Yeah.
And then, you know, youmentioned folks can be have some
fear of writing and fear ofmaybe the the thoughts that come
on that page when you Right.
SPEAKER_00 (07:47):
Oh man, there's so many fears.
I mean, there's fear of notbeing perfect, of being judged,
of failing, of you know, all ofthose kinds of things that are
going on.
And it's I think important torealize what it is you're afraid
of and why you're afraid.
I mean, what is it about failurethat is so mortifying?
And uh, once you get a handle onthose answers, then I think
(08:11):
that's one step closer to doingsomething courageous.
I can give you I can give youone example of being reckless.
All right.
This is my uh I play drums.
Uh Ringo Starr taught me how toplay drums.
He doesn't know it, but when theBeatles hit the scene, I, you
know, watched Ringo and listenedto the records and taught myself
(08:33):
how to play drums.
All right, fast forward.
My son James is a professionaldrummer, and he was visiting me
in uh DC.
We went to a jazz club that hada jam session.
And I asked James, are you gonnago up there and play?
He goes, No, I should havelistened.
He had enough self-awareness toknow that this, you know, this
(08:53):
was not necessarily gonna be agood fit for him.
He was much more of aperfectionist, and I had no
fear.
I just went swaggering up there.
I took the sticks from the housedrummer, and they called
something 4-4 medium swing.
I can do that.
So, you know, I'm great.
And then a couple of hornplayers got up to play.
I found out later they had justplayed a gig at the Kennedy
(09:16):
Center.
So I'm in over my head and Idon't know it.
So they call something, theycount it down, they're flying,
and I'm still taxiing, right?
You know you're in trouble whenduring the song the house
drummer sidles up to me andsays, I'll take over.
So here I am trying to switchhands.
It was a major fail.
(09:38):
And that taught me that I neededto learn how to do jazz
drumming.
So I, you know, James, teach mehow to do this.
And he very patiently tried toget me, you know, the next step.
I joined a jazz workshop anddiscovered when this guy brings
us together for two hours everyweek to play jazz, jazz is
(09:58):
improv.
It's failing all the time.
It's like improv comedy or life.
Life is improv.
We have no idea where thisconversation is going to go.
We're making it up as we go.
And so that's a that was a reallife lesson about failure
because if we are in any kind ofin the moment interaction with
(10:18):
someone, the potential forfailure, saying something stupid
or whatever, is there.
You know, a conversation with ayou know a pretty young woman,
you know, that could go wrong.
But you know, it's all part ofthe life.
SPEAKER_01 (10:32):
Yes, it it can go wrong and and learn it, learn
for next time, right?
Right.
There you go.
There you go.
All right, you just keepchatting, you keep talking,
figure it out.
But and I just think that's thethat's the main thing about
failure is that you you youlearn.
And you will have more failuresthan successes, right?
(10:55):
And a successful career.
SPEAKER_00 (10:59):
Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, look at baseball.
I mean, if you've got a 400average, that's slugger
territory, but that meansyou've, you know, whiffed 60% of
the time.
SPEAKER_01 (11:09):
Yeah.
And and people don't realizethat.
Most times you go up to bat,you're going to strike out.
You're going to whiff.
You just need a few hits.
Same with sales, same withphotography.
You take a hundred pictures andyou probably only get three most
quality pictures to actuallyshow, you know, the client,
(11:29):
right?
There you go.
You know, so it you're going tofail more times than not.
And so not taking the failure soseriously and and and even going
into action, just understandingthat what's meant to be is gonna
happen.
SPEAKER_00 (11:44):
You know, exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (11:45):
But you have to do it.
You have to do it, right?
You gotta you know, but as we'resitting down talking about it,
I'm even thinking about itmyself of understanding, having
a more self-awareness in I feellike journaling in writing can
help with that.
SPEAKER_00 (12:03):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I journal every day.
I journal every day.
And it's not for everybody, butI mean, I've been journaling
since I was, I don't know, 10years old, something like that.
I mean, it's evolved.
I mean, I think my first realactual journaling entry was when
I was 19 and I'd just broken upmy with my girlfriend, and I
(12:24):
wrote, you know, today I didprobably the dumbest thing I've
ever done.
But it, you know, fast forward,it it I journal every morning,
basically looking at the eventsof the day before.
And, you know, bas for the mostpart, it's just the facts.
This is what happened.
But more often than not, there'ssomething that requires me to
(12:45):
elaborate on, you know, to askmyself, why did I do that?
Why did I say that?
What can I do about this?
Thinking onto the page.
And so, yeah, journaling hasbeen a great place to work
things through.
SPEAKER_01 (12:58):
What so what has that done for you?
Being able to really look atthings kind of critically.
SPEAKER_00 (13:04):
I thought, well, you use the word self-aware, and I
think that is the key here.
That's the goal, because weoften just kind of stumble
through life and and neverreally look at it critically,
never really look at ourselvescritically.
And, you know, uh there was I Ican give you one example again.
My uh youngest son died of aheroin overdose of 14 years ago
(13:28):
now.
And I went through griefcounseling for two and a half
years.
And at the end of it, my griefcounselor said, You don't really
need me anymore because you askyourself the right questions
when you journal.
So journaling and it and and alot of these grief experiences
made their way into my writingas well.
(13:49):
I mean, uh I've written sixmystery suspense thriller
novels, and grief and lossundergird all of them because
it's part of my protagonist'sstory.
SPEAKER_01 (13:59):
Yeah, it's actually part of your story, how you even
got there.
So with grieving, right, andhealing through that too.
We talk about healing, askingyourself certain questions for
folks that's going through thatnow or may go through that,
right?
What does that look likeactually healing through
(14:21):
writing?
SPEAKER_00 (14:22):
Whoa, that's that's a powerful question.
And a lot of people who've gonethrough a loss, experienced a
loss, will ask me, you know,does time heal?
You know, is this ever going toget better?
And, you know, I can say thattime changes you.
(14:42):
I'm not sure I don't even knowif healing is the right word,
but I think that being able tobe mindful of the moment and
allow yourself to have thefeelings.
You know, I don't want toovergeneralize, but in my
experience, women get it.
You know, they are okay withcrying.
(15:02):
It's an emotional safety valve.
Whereas guys, or at least as faras you know, what it's like for
me, it's a sign of weakness.
You know, we tend to kind ofhold it in, but it doesn't make
it go away.
It just corrodes and festers.
And my hunch is, and I have nodata to back this up, but look
at all the mass shootings, withwith one or two exceptions, it's
(15:27):
all guys.
SPEAKER_02 (15:27):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:28):
And my hunch is that these are guys who are dealing
with unresolved grief and angerto the point where the tears
have become bullets.
SPEAKER_02 (15:41):
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:44):
So which means, guys, we need to talk this out.
Talk to it, talk about it with aprofessional, someone who really
knows what they're doing andknows the questions to ask you.
A lot of guys resist counselingbecause it's like, well, I don't
want anybody to tell me what todo.
They're not telling you what todo.
It's a safe place where you cantalk things out, and it's their
(16:06):
questions that will give you theinner clarity that you need to
know how to go forward.
It's not like some, it's notlike somebody's telling you what
to do.
It's like you find your ownanswers.
SPEAKER_01 (16:18):
Yeah, that's that's uh the way you put that is is
perfect.
You find your own answers, andthen you people just think, you
know, hey, you go to therapy andthen that's it.
You you have to do some work foryourself.
unknown (16:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (16:34):
Right?
Yep.
These questions that they ask,you have to really think about
that, right?
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (16:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (16:41):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (16:45):
Well, I mean, you gotta you get to know yourself.
And and I think that's goes backto self-awareness, what you were
talking about.
The and and and that then meansthat you can become effective in
the moment.
Because that's the only time wehave any control over something
is right now.
And right now.
And right now.
It's you know, now is alwayshere.
(17:06):
So, you know, we don't need towaste our time regretting
whatever stupid thing we did orwhat was done to us.
We don't have to worry aboutfearing something that's gonna
happen because that hasn'thappened yet.
We're in the moment and we canaffect the future.
SPEAKER_01 (17:19):
Yeah.
You you get an opportunity tounderstand, especially when you
say you know yourself, you getan opportunity to understand why
I feel certain emotions, right?
SPEAKER_00 (17:31):
Because emotions just they happen to you.
You have no real control overwhat your emotions are.
And that then is a signal.
All right.
I mean, an emotion there'snothing wrong with emotions.
Emotions are morally neutral,they just are, and they happen
for a reason, and then it's amatter of finding out what the
reason is and and dealing withthat core issue of whatever's
(17:53):
coming up.
SPEAKER_01 (17:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (17:55):
And I'm not for the record, I'm not a psychologist,
I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm justa guy.
I'm just trying to figure itout.
SPEAKER_01 (18:02):
You got experience.
You got experience.
And I think with these emotions,they they become really good
indicators of of how you'refeeling.
And what's great about we wetalk about self-awareness.
What bothers you might notbother me.
SPEAKER_00 (18:19):
Bingo.
SPEAKER_01 (18:20):
So that's why the self-awareness and and somebody
saying, Well, why does thatbother you?
You're like, Yeah, why why doesthat bother me?
I think journaling and andreally like going through your
days and going through certainmoments is so key.
SPEAKER_00 (18:38):
It's so uh I get the impression you journal.
SPEAKER_01 (18:40):
Yeah, I journal not as consistently as I should, but
it's so many times where I'vejournaled and found things out
about myself by doing that, youknow.
SPEAKER_00 (18:53):
And I would my hunch is you tell me if this resonates
with you.
One of the things I'vediscovered about writing,
whether it's journaling orwriting a novel, is this what I
call the spooky power of thesubconscious.
In other words, if you're justwriting, you know, asking
yourself what if or why, andthen just write and not pause to
(19:13):
go, oh, I gotta make thispretty.
It's gotta be writerly or fancyor whatever.
Just writing bypasses thatcritical school, you know, your
mom on your shoulder going, youcan't say that.
You know, it and it just itbypasses the critical editor,
and it's and it's like taking asip, that those questions, like
(19:34):
taking a sip, and the act ofwriting causes that stuff to
come out of your subconsciousthrough the fingers and onto the
page.
Has that been has that been doesthat resonate with you?
SPEAKER_01 (19:46):
Yeah, which is why I said in the beginning, I have
these thoughts that come to me,and it's like, wow, me writing
it, and me actually writing itis a lot deeper than how I can
express it through talking aboutit or speaking about it.
SPEAKER_00 (20:02):
There's there's a class I I teach a class on
memoir writing, and there was aguy who took my class, and he
was writing a memoir about hishis the death of his wife, and
he told me that he went back tohis journals to kind of refresh
his memory, and he said, I'dforgotten how angry I was.
And that then tells me that bywriting it down, it siphoned off
(20:28):
the anger, got it onto the page.
Now he can look at itobjectively, and because the
anger isn't crippling himanymore, he was able to move
forward in his life.
SPEAKER_01 (20:38):
Yeah.
Because we shove we shove theseemotions down, especially may
happen a long time ago.
And like you said, I'm healed.
Potentially you could just betaking out those emotions and
pushing them down.
SPEAKER_00 (20:49):
Oh man, because we tend to our society tends to
anesthetize the pain.
You know, alcohol does that, anynumber of things that we do to
fill up, you know, and numb, youknow, the painfulness.
And it it doesn't make it goaway, it just festers and
corrodes.
And it and it will manifestitself, but often in a
dysfunctional way that is eitherhurtful to us or people we love
(21:14):
or others who are around us.
SPEAKER_01 (21:16):
Wow.
Yeah.
So we have to process us, it'smeant we have to process it.
And you know, for me growing up,like you said, it was weakness,
right?
So being being sad, being angry.
SPEAKER_00 (21:29):
Oh man, anger.
You said something with theanger, I want to just say one
quick thing about that, becauseI've been doing a lot of
thinking about it as well.
And it seems to me, based on thepeople I know, that if you're
not able in some way to let goof that anger, you're you're
(21:50):
doomed to continue to to dwellon it and let it fester and
corrode and and it preoccupiesyour life to the point where
you're not able to be cleansedof it.
It's it's it's a and it's aletting go thing.
And I and I don't have a quickanswer on how one lets go, but
(22:12):
it would seem to me that wouldbe the goal.
How can I let this go so thatit's not pulling me down?
It's it's like an undertow thatprevents you from really living
up to your potential because allyour energy is going toward this
thing that you can't changeanymore.
SPEAKER_01 (22:30):
Yeah, yeah.
And you ruminate on it, right?
You don't actually accept it orfeel the emotion, just feeling
it.
SPEAKER_00 (22:41):
Yeah, yeah.
I think, yeah, I think there's Ithink there's something to that
about getting it out there, butI think that you can get it out
there over and over and overagain, and pretty soon, you
know, you're kind of in the zoneof being angry all the time.
I'm not sure that's the ultimatesolution.
Yeah.
I'm I'm thinking thatforgiveness is probably the key.
(23:03):
And I and it doesn't meanwaiting for someone to tell you
I'm sorry.
I mean, that that wouldcertainly, I think, accelerate
the healing process.
But at some point, I think youneed to make the choice that
you're not gonna dwell on thisanymore.
What whoever did you knowsomething bad to you, they did
it, it was terrible, but yougotta let it go and move on and
(23:29):
move forward because otherwiseyou're just stuck.
You're just gonna be stuck.
SPEAKER_01 (23:33):
Yeah, 100%.
I think it's uh like you said,get it out.
Forgiveness, right?
Forgive it.
And then look for the benefit onthe other side of it.
SPEAKER_00 (23:47):
Yeah.
And and let me let me go back toforgiveness, because uh, you
know, I agree I appreciate thisopportunity to think through
these things, becauseforgiveness, you know, may not
be the right word to use becauseI I can already hear somebody
saying I will never be able toforgive that behavior.
Yeah.
Understood, understood, becauseyou know, if someone did
(24:07):
something really bad to you,that it really is unforgivable.
But I think though, thatforgiving, and I'd have to kind
of study this, forgiveforgiveness doesn't mean
absolution.
It doesn't mean, oh,everything's fine, you know,
everything's cool, you'reforgiven, you're okay.
No, I don't know if that'snecessarily what I'm saying.
(24:30):
It just means I'm choosing to nolonger let your behavior define
who I am.
I need to get beyond this, andby getting on with it, I have to
let it go.
And I'm I'm putting you out ofmy life now.
SPEAKER_01 (24:45):
Yeah, I I'm not allowing you to have power of my
That's it.
That's that's it.
Yes, well said.
I'm letting go of you, havingcontrol of my day-to-day.
Because like you said, you canbe angry for years for something
that happened to you from yearsago and and allowing that to
still have control of you.
SPEAKER_00 (25:06):
Yep.
You said it so well.
Obviously, you've wrestled withthis, or at least that's
something that this podcastdeals with.
SPEAKER_01 (25:14):
Yeah, yeah.
And and I had a I had a a gueston talking about forgiveness,
and she is a forgiveness coach,actually, helping folks forgive
people.
And it's forgiveness on variousdifferent levels, right?
You have some people that youreally need to forgive, that
some pain you are reallyholding, and and then you have
(25:35):
kind of these lower things thatyou need to forgive people, and
so it's a practice, actually.
And she mentions that it's apractice to forgive, right?
SPEAKER_00 (25:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:46):
Letting it go for you.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (25:50):
And I mean, and that, and you know, you can do
that in your daily life as well.
I mean, you know, you and yourwife get into it about
something, and it's a it's like,does this need is this a big
deal or do we need to talk aboutit?
I mean, it's it's a choice.
You know, some things don't riseto the level of, you know,
nuclear war.
SPEAKER_01 (26:11):
No, you you you put it right on the head.
And I'm just and I I'm justthinking here because writing,
especially back in ancienttimes, writing for them was
everything, right?
To the point where we still reada lot of those ancient teaching
teachings today, and they stillhold true.
SPEAKER_00 (26:33):
Well, and you know, I think there would I Jesus
Christ Superstar is a great, youknow, rock opera, and it was
it's been around for a longtime.
And there's a song in therewhere the lyric is basically, I
think it's Judas asking Jesus,you know, why did you come in a
time when there was no masscommunication?
And I think that the I'vethought about that a lot, and I
(26:55):
think the answer is that the waythey communicated was in
writing.
And writing is cool because thewords stay the same, but the
person, you can read the samewords over and over again at
different times, and you takesomething different away from
it.
The the sentiment is the same,the words are the same, but
(27:17):
you're different, and you seething, you see something
different in that written word.
So it's that, it's the thesteadiness and the stability and
the and the the impermanence ofthe words, but we are evolving
and changing.
SPEAKER_01 (27:35):
You go through so many different things in life,
different situations,experiences, your current times
are different.
It's so important to to kind ofgo back to those things, right?
Yeah, I think so.
You know, and and it's a totallydifferent meaning.
Almost to the point where it'ssome things that I've read and
I'm like, I I didn't fully Ithought I understood that, but I
(27:56):
did not fully grasp that.
SPEAKER_00 (28:00):
Yes, I can give you another quick example, and that
is when my sister died.
My sister took her life in 1980.
That's a long time ago.
And I and I didn't go throughgrief counseling, but there was
somebody in my life who said,move toward the pain.
It was good advice, and I had noidea what it meant.
It took me until my son died tokind of get the concept is that
(28:24):
as I we we talked about earlier,you mine the pain and get it out
on paper one way or the other,journaling, writing stories, and
that's when you're reallyprocessing it and taking it
seriously and trying to learnfrom the experience.
SPEAKER_01 (28:41):
And I think especially men, we we look for
everything that avoids pain.
And even to the point where it'speople out there who are
avoiding they're avoiding painthat they don't even know that
they're numbing.
SPEAKER_00 (28:56):
Yeah.
Well, I mean your podcast,playing injured.
I mean, if you're injured, youyou're you got pain.
SPEAKER_01 (29:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you gotta go towards it, youknow.
And it's tough.
I mean, it's not easy.
It's it's one of the toughestthings to do.
SPEAKER_00 (29:12):
And sometimes it's wise not to play through the
injury.
Exactly.
You gotta be able to discern,you know, when you shake it off
and when you need to heal.
SPEAKER_01 (29:21):
Yeah, yeah.
And so you mentioned how you'veyou've also used kind of the
pain that you've gone throughand expressed it through your
creativity of writing fictionnovels, right?
Right, yep.
To write stories about it.
And uh, you know, it it's it'scrazy because I've had thoughts
about, you know, certainsituations, painful situations
(29:42):
that I've been through.
I'm like, man, I would love toto to give this to Netflix to
make that an episode about this.
But you've turned books intothat.
How has that helped you to to toto express kind of the things
you've gone through intocreative endeavors?
SPEAKER_00 (29:59):
That's a really good question.
And and the interesting answeris that I didn't set out to heal
by writing stories.
I Set out because basically CNNmade me an editor and I'd been a
reporter and I needed a creativeoutlet.
Editing was tedious.
It was fault finding, but itpaid well.
So I started to write fiction.
(30:21):
And what I ended up stumblingonto was write what you know.
It's the, you know, rule numberone for writers.
And what I knew was grief andloss.
And so my first chapter of myfirst novel is My Sister's
Suicide.
I was on the scene that day.
And so I just wrote it.
Not to heal, but to accesssomething that was powerful.
(30:43):
And it wasn't until I lookedback over the six novels that I
realized, holy cow, that'swhat's going on here.
And so it was the act ofwriting, and and basically I'm a
slow learner.
So it was just realizing afterso long that I'm going, whoa,
this is what I'm doing, and it'sreally helping.
SPEAKER_01 (31:07):
And so you you just kind of stumbled upon that,
honestly.
Stumbled on it, yeah, totally.
Tell me this.
So we you and I, before we hitrecord, you talked about how
you've written from a femaleperspective.
SPEAKER_02 (31:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (31:18):
Some of these novels, right?
And I think a lot of the menwould love to learn.
First of all, I would love tolearn that how you even got to
that place of writing from afemale perspective.
SPEAKER_00 (31:27):
Fair enough.
I was, I was, uh when I firststarted writing fiction, someone
suggested that I should write ina way that stretches who I am.
Never been a woman, at least notin this life.
In fact, there was a woman at awriter's, I was giving a write a
talk at a uh bookstore, and awoman in the back raised her
hand and said, What do you wearwhen you write?
(31:50):
You know, as if I, you know, Ihave my you know, leotards on
and my high heels.
And it's not, I'm a straightguy, you know.
I just write.
I I've what I discovered though,Josh, is that emotions are not
gender specific.
We all have the exact sameemotions.
It's just that in my life, thewomen are more willing to share
(32:13):
their emotions and they're morearticulate about the emotions
they share.
And so I was at CNN for 25years.
That's 25 years worth of youngwomen in their early to mid-20s
who would tell me their storiesabout their boyfriends and their
careers and their families.
And I learned what it's like tobe a woman.
There was one anchor I workedwith, gorgeous.
(32:33):
And I remember asking her,what's it like for guys to come
on to you all the time?
And she said, and this reallywas an eye-opener, she said, I
can tell in the first 20 secondsif I'm safe.
I never have to worry aboutbeing safe in a conversation.
And that's when I realized thatone thing it means to be a woman
(32:55):
is that you have to playdefense.
Women have to be on defense.
It's just the way it is.
And that was an eye-opener.
And that just is one thing thathelped fuel my understanding of
what it's like to be a woman.
So these women, many of them,became beta readers.
They would read early drafts ofthe novel and tell me if I'm
(33:16):
getting it right or wrong.
SPEAKER_01 (33:18):
So you got a real, a real good opportunity to really
learn.
SPEAKER_00 (33:23):
Because I listened.
Guys don't listen to women.
You know, they hear, they hearthe, you know, you need to take
out the trap or whatever it is.
You know, they feel like they'rebeing scolded and they tune them
out.
They're they're saying somethingand you need to listen.
It goes back to what we'retalking about in being
self-aware.
Women can help a guy beself-aware.
(33:46):
You know, granted, there's a lotof, I don't know, a lot of
emotional turmoil that can begoing on in one of those
conversations, but you need totake a step back and maybe talk
to somebody who's aprofessional, go to your
journal, whatever it is, to kindof figure out what is it that
this person is saying?
Is it valid or not?
You know, maybe it is, maybe notall entirely.
(34:08):
Maybe there's somemisunderstandings going on.
But again, you know, in a may ina male-female relationship, that
can be highly charged, and weneed to get a handle on it and
try to find ways to work itthrough and listen to who's
telling us we need to change.
SPEAKER_01 (34:31):
Yeah.
You may need to listen.
Yeah.
For sure.
What other what other things domen need to do that they don't
do?
What other mistakes?
From your, I mean, from youbeing able to do all this kind
of research and get thatperspective, which is Oh man, I
learned I learned a lot.
SPEAKER_00 (34:49):
I've learned a lot from my conversations with with
women.
My wife and I have been married47 years.
We're still together, eventhough our son died.
And that can kill a marriage.
But, you know, for some reasonwe were able to get through
that, primarily because wedidn't compare our grief to the
other person.
We got help separately.
(35:09):
But as far as relationships areconcerned, I think that from
what I understand from the womenI've talked to, guys tend, and
this is this is especially truefrom really attractive women.
Guys think that they're payingthem a compliment by going, oh,
you're so beautiful.
They hear that all the time.
(35:30):
That's boring.
What they really want is toplay, to banter, you know, to
not be put up on a pedestal, butto be, you know, treated as if
they're a, you know, thatthere's there's uh that they're
a real person, that they can beseen.
And so, you know, listening towhat they have to say instead of
trying to impress them with yourbank account or your
(35:52):
high-powered career.
The other thing that goes wrongis that, you know, guys tend to
get needy.
You know, once once it oncethere's something going on here,
you know, all of a sudden theconfident person that the woman
was attracted to goes out thewindow, and all of a sudden, you
know, they they feel they, youknow, need, you know, constant
(36:15):
affirmation or whatever.
And so, you know, guys can betheir worst enemy in a
relationship.
SPEAKER_01 (36:22):
Yeah.
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (36:23):
Is this making any sense?
SPEAKER_01 (36:25):
Yeah, 100%.
Yeah, a lot of it.
A lot of sense of needingness.
And that's where I think itcomes back down to why I feel
like it's so important for mento be self-aware.
SPEAKER_00 (36:40):
Self-aware.
Let me say one other quickthing.
There was another woman I workedwith at CNN, also gorgeous, and
she was going through a divorce.
And at one point she saidwistfully, she said, I always
seem to fall for the bad boys.
And I said, Why?
And she was stunned.
It was like no one had everasked her that before.
(37:01):
And so she thought a minute andshe said, and and she didn't
mean to sound conceited orarrogant, she said, they just
they always they're the ones whohave the confidence to approach
me.
And I think that she was on tosomething because the bad boys
have the confidence.
The problem is the bad boys arebad, they get mean and
(37:25):
controlling, and and the niceguys keep losing.
Here's my suggestion.
If you're a nice guy, it's okayto be nice because that's a
great quality, being kind, butwhat's attractive is confidence.
And confidence doesn't mean youhave to be mean.
SPEAKER_01 (37:43):
Yeah.
Confident, courageous andboundaries, especially as a nice
person.
You gotta have some value.
SPEAKER_00 (37:53):
Oh man, oh man.
And boundaries go both ways.
SPEAKER_01 (37:56):
Yeah, 100%.
And and thinking aboutself-awareness, though, you
talked about neediness, forinstance.
Being able to to write andjournal about, okay, why is it
that I need this person?
SPEAKER_00 (38:13):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Oh man.
Oh man.
That is probably, if you were tolook at my journals, and I'm not
gonna show them to you, thankyou very much, for asking, you
know, if you were to go there,you would see me struggling with
that issue for decades.
And I would learn.
I mean, you know, I would learnin the process, but it's like it
(38:35):
was a recurring theme.
It's like, oh, everything's gotno, it's not.
Yeah, here it is again.
What am I what have I learnedfrom the last time?
SPEAKER_01 (38:44):
Yeah.
It's like you need somethingoutside of yourself, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
It's like uh I need something, Ineed that new promotion, I need
that car, I need that, that,that, that, that high-rise
apartment, I need that that newpurse or that new, you know, new
(39:04):
new clothes, new everything tomake me feel oh man.
SPEAKER_00 (39:09):
Sad.
There was there was an interviewI did, a guy asked me, how do
how do how do I define success?
Which I think is a fabulousquestion.
And I'm not sure my answer wasso fabulous, but my answer is I
think I defined success by beingable to do what you're good at
and what you love.
(39:30):
And when you do those twothings, the success is its own
reward because you're in thezone.
SPEAKER_01 (39:37):
Yeah.
Well, how do I say?
SPEAKER_00 (39:39):
Comes from within.
SPEAKER_01 (39:40):
Yeah, it comes from within.
And I, you know, uh I I feellike I'm on that journey right
now.
Still young, right?
I'm 29.
SPEAKER_00 (39:49):
God, I used to be 29.
SPEAKER_01 (39:52):
And uh just yeah, I think a lot of men are probably
on this journey of uh looking tofeel whole within.
unknown (40:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (40:03):
You know.
SPEAKER_00 (40:04):
And let me stop you just for a second, because
you're making a lot of sense.
But, you know, a lot of times,and this goes back to
relationships, you know, peoplesay, well, you know, I'm I won't
be whole until I find that, youknow, person who completes me.
And I think I and I understandthat, and I and I think it's a
valid feeling, and I know peoplefeel that way.
But what I think works better iswhen you come to a person who is
(40:29):
also whole, and you're whole,and the two of you together make
something that's even stronger.
But it's not like I need you tocomplete me because that depends
then on the other person.
That person goes away and youfreak out.
SPEAKER_01 (40:45):
And like we said, right?
You can't control anotherperson.
There you go.
A lot of guys, a lot of bad boystry that.
Yeah, you can't control her.
And even as a nice guy or a niceperson or a good person, you'd
have no idea the other person'sbackground, histories, trauma,
(41:10):
whatever the case may be, right?
That's right, that's right.
Um, which is why yourself-awareness and your
boundaries and you beingcomplete is so important, right?
SPEAKER_00 (41:20):
Oh man, yes.
You've done a lot of workalready, man.
I wish I wish I were talkinglike this when I was 29.
SPEAKER_01 (41:28):
Well, you know, that's what happens when you
actually go through you gothrough things and learn it.
SPEAKER_02 (41:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (41:35):
You go through things and you know, once you
start to go through a lot, youand and I think also to just
being self-aware of afterlearning something, right?
I don't know if a lot of peoplewhen they feel some type of pain
or they go through a struggle orthey feel like they've made a
(41:55):
mistake, if they go back andreally take a look at it, which
is why I think writing and andand having practices like this
is so important.
Talking to people, like wementioned.
SPEAKER_00 (42:06):
Yep.
SPEAKER_01 (42:07):
So they can see your blind spots that you don't see.
SPEAKER_00 (42:10):
Oh yeah.
Oh man, blind spots, that'shuge.
SPEAKER_01 (42:13):
And so you you start to just learn a ton, and then
you know, you you start to see,okay, what's the work that I
need to to to put some attentionto?
So um, and it's still it's stilla journey for me.
So I I mean I would love to hearfrom you.
You you talked about for decadesyou had, you know, needs.
(42:34):
Yeah.
Like you needed, right?
Or things outside of you thatwould make you feel complete,
right?
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (42:41):
Yep.
SPEAKER_01 (42:42):
I guess what have you learned from decades of of
going through that?
SPEAKER_00 (42:46):
I think probably the biggest thing I've learned is to
not give up, A, learning from mymistakes, and B, not being
afraid to try again.
And what I've discovered is thattrying again after having
evaluated things, I've I've comeup with a new approach, or I've
(43:08):
been more aware of, well, don'tgo there because that didn't
work, and uh, and and learningfrom the mistakes that I've
made.
So that I'm at a point nowwhere, you know, I think I feel
much more complete and much moresatisfied, much more self-aware,
much more a whole and completeperson, responsible for my own
(43:30):
happiness.
And joy, even, and even joy.
SPEAKER_01 (43:34):
Yeah.
So we talk about control or nothaving much of it.
Or how have you handled,especially and this this
definitely comes up for me,especially learning the lesson
of wanting to behold fromwithin.
How do you handle situationsthat don't go the way you wanted
it to go?
(43:56):
And I and Well, I swear.
And then another part to this,right?
Not handling things that didn'tgo the way you wanted to go, but
or yeah, that didn't go the wayyou wanted it to go, but also it
ended up being it ended upworking out perfectly in the
(44:16):
long run, right?
So things that didn't go the wayyou wanted it to go, how you
handled it, and then lookingback on it, you're probably glad
that it didn't go that waybecause it went this way, that
that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00 (44:29):
Yeah, and I don't know if I can come up with any
particular specific examples,but I think that the the
underlying theme that keepsmanifesting itself all through
my life in terms of the mistakesand the learning and so on goes
back to taking a breath, youknow, getting back to the
moment.
You know, it's it as I said, youknow, the emotions are they're
(44:53):
morally neutral.
They're the they're just there.
And it's okay to feel them andit's okay to be aware of what
they are, but then it's a matterof understanding them and being
in the moment.
If you if you're in the moment,I think that that's where you
can find some at least temporarypeace that enables you to be
able to look more objectively atwhat's going on and and then
(45:17):
kind of uh uh plotting your wayforward.
I don't think it's any morecomplicated than that.
Because if you're in the momentand you're and you're taking a
breath and you're allowingyourself to get calm and to look
at things objectively, I thinkthose are the that those are the
ingredients that you'll then tobe able to utilize as you
formulate the next steps.
(45:39):
Nothing, you know, it's it's Idon't think it's any more
complicated than that, butthat's enough.
SPEAKER_01 (45:45):
Yeah, 100%.
More than enough.
SPEAKER_00 (45:48):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (45:48):
More than enough.
To take a breath, to take somespace.
SPEAKER_00 (45:53):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (45:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (45:56):
I mean, you know, guys hear this all the time.
I need some space.
And they're taking care ofthemselves.
You know, the woman is saying, Ineed some space.
And, you know, I don't know howmany guys, I I've been out of
the picture for a while, but I'mnot sure how many guys go, I
need some space.
And it's like, no, you need tobe with me.
Why aren't you texting me?
(46:17):
You know, those kind of things.
I need some space.
It's probably got a somethinggoing on there that's uh making
sense.
SPEAKER_01 (46:25):
Give me some space.
And and I mean, as men, we needspace to take our time with with
a lot of different things,right?
To think about I I loved how yousaid to think about like your
yesterday.
SPEAKER_02 (46:43):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (46:43):
Understand why did I do certain things, right?
Well, I didn't feel like goingto the gym.
Well, why didn't I?
I woke up, passed my alarm.
Well, why did I do that?
Okay, I I stayed up late thenight before and you know, maybe
I had too many to drink.
Okay, well, how could we fixthat?
I it's a lot of things that weneed to do to take some space
(47:06):
and take some time.
SPEAKER_00 (47:07):
And if we're aw and if we're of aware of the moment,
then when that choice, you know,you know, are we gonna have that
third drink or are we gonna callit a night?
SPEAKER_01 (47:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (47:17):
Because I know what I felt like the next morning.
SPEAKER_01 (47:19):
Exactly.
That happens all the time.
All the time, right?
Where you you've made a choice,right?
And then that that situationcomes up again.
You got the opportunity to toredeem yourself.
And then a lot of times they'relike, Well, uh, I can just do
it, and on the back half, I canfigure something out on the back
(47:40):
half instead of not making thedecision, you know?
And so um no, it's it's so muchto learn.
And and I think that, I thinkmore than anything, I think what
I'm learning is justself-awareness and and how
important that is.
And I don't know, John, if Ithought I would come walk away
from this this conversation withyou thinking that.
SPEAKER_00 (48:02):
Well, is that a I think that's a good thing,
right?
SPEAKER_01 (48:05):
It's a great thing, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (48:07):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (48:08):
It's a great thing.
John, where can people find you?
Where can they get in touch withyou and kind of learn more about
your store?
SPEAKER_00 (48:15):
Best best way to do it is through my website, which
is my name.com.
That's johndedakis.com.
I'll spell it because it's atricky Greek name.
J-O-H-N D as in dog e, d as indog A, K-I-S as in Sam,
johndedakis.com tells about mybooks, my upcoming events, my uh
(48:38):
uh writing classes, my speaking,all that kind of stuff.
Plus, there are plenty of waysto get through to me by email on
several of those pages.
SPEAKER_01 (48:48):
Yeah, I'm looking at the website right now.
Another beautiful shirt.
You you probably got a lot ofshirts.
Yeah, another great one here.
Great photo.
And I'll make sure I put this inthe footnotes.
SPEAKER_02 (49:00):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (49:01):
Folks would be able to see this.
This is some some great stuff.
Thank you that I'm taking a lookat.
So, John, we appreciate yousharing.
I mean, just a ton of nuggetsand just your your history, your
experience, and I think it's alot of gold in this episode.
SPEAKER_00 (49:17):
So man, well, you brought it out.
Thanks, Josh.
This was fun.
SPEAKER_01 (49:25):
Free audio post production by alphonic.com.
One of the main focuses of today's episode is
how we can use writing as a wayto heal.
And today's guest is John Daday,who was a journalist for 45
years, including a stint as aWhite House correspondent during
the Reagan era.
John is also a former editor onCNN's The Situation Room with
Wolf Blazer.
(00:27):
John is now a writing coach.
He's an award-winning novelist.
And we also talk about howwriting can help with grief,
with self-awareness, withunderstanding who we are.
We also talk about fear and howtaking small acts of courage is
how we build confidence.
And then we also talk aboutworking through our feelings,
(00:49):
forgiveness, letting go, thingsthat men need to work on.
Today's episode was amazing, andI can't wait for you guys to
take a listen.
I started off like this everyepisode.
It's who is John and how does hespend his time today?
SPEAKER_00 (01:04):
Whoa, man.
John's old.
He's been around a while.
So there's been a lot of a lotof a lot of progress, I guess
you could say.
Born in La Crosse, Wisconsin,intended to go into law with my
dad, who was a lawyer, ended upgoing into journalism.
As you said, for 45 years, Icovered the White House when
(01:26):
Reagan was president for thelast three years of his
presidency.
Ended my uh journalism career atCNN, where I was an editor for
25 years.
And while I was at CNN, Istarted writing novels.
And that was basically I startedwriting them 30 years ago, but
it took me 10 years to get theagent that I've got.
(01:47):
And that progress, that processof trial and error, mostly
error, got me to the point whereI was able to deconstruct the
writing process.
So I've got six mystery suspensethriller novels under my belt,
and I now teach people how towrite novels and memoirs, and
I'm a one-on-one writing coach.
SPEAKER_01 (02:08):
Okay.
So I I'll be making a call toyou in the future about works.
SPEAKER_00 (02:13):
It works for me.
SPEAKER_01 (02:15):
But you mentioned something about even obviously,
you know, saying you owed andexperienced, but more so that
you've evolved kind of overtime.
SPEAKER_00 (02:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (02:25):
Through trial and error, a lot of error.
A lot of us are afraid of erroror fear.
SPEAKER_00 (02:32):
Right?
Yep.
Yep.
Fear is fear is a huge, hugething.
SPEAKER_01 (02:36):
Yeah.
Walk me through that.
SPEAKER_00 (02:41):
We've we spend a lot of our time regretting the past
and fearing the future, andwe're no good in the moment.
And fear is there the I I teacha class actually on teaching, on
facing your fears.
And what I've discovered in mylong life is there's I call it
the fear continuum.
(03:02):
There's recklessness, that's theabsence of fear.
We just go and do it.
There's caution, that's countingthe cost.
Is this going to kill me,bankrupt me?
Am I going to lose my health?
There's cowardice.
We know what we should do whenwe freeze.
And there's courage, and that'sthe goal.
But in order to be courageous,it doesn't mean the fear goes
(03:25):
away.
It means facing your fear andgoing forward anyway, like the
guys did who stormed the beachesof Normandy.
Were they afraid?
They were terrified and theywent forward anyway.
That's fear in action.
And so it's a matter of learninghow to do that, whether it's
living or writing or whatever.
SPEAKER_01 (03:45):
Yeah.
And I feel like folks know that,right?
SPEAKER_00 (03:50):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (03:50):
It's I gotta do it.
What any tricks, anything you'vedone to have that courage, that
courageous moment in times whereyou felt fear, what does that
look like for you?
SPEAKER_00 (04:03):
I can give you one quick example from when I was
covering the 1984 presidentialprimary.
I was in uh Manchester, NewHampshire, and my assignment for
the day was to do person on thestreet interviews.
You know, who are you gonna votefor for president?
Right.
It's a pretty simple question.
It took me 20 minutes to get thecourage to ask the question for
(04:23):
the first time.
And I mean, I look back on itand was like, what was I afraid
of?
You know, I was afraid thatsomebody was gonna get pissed at
me because it was six in themorning and you know, they
hadn't had their coffee yet orwhatever.
But what I discovered is thatonce you get into the rhythm,
once you do that thing thatyou're afraid of, there's a
byproduct.
(04:44):
The byproduct is confidence.
You know, no one shot at you.
It, you know, the world didn'tblow up, and you were able to do
it.
And it makes it easier to do itthe next time and so on.
SPEAKER_01 (04:54):
Yeah.
You just made me think aboutit's uh a book called Six
Pillars of Self-Esteem.
One of them isself-assertiveness.
That's one of the pillars.
And a lot of people believe, oh,this person is self-assertive
because that's just who theyare, instead of thinking, no,
they became that way by takingthese small moments of
(05:17):
courageous actions, and thenover time they become this
person that seems courageous orself-assertive and not realizing
that they just had to take thesemoments, right?
SPEAKER_00 (05:29):
And that's true whether you're an extrovert or
an introvert.
I mean, extroverts do tend to beout there a little bit more.
Introverts, obviously, they're alittle more uh reserved, and
that doesn't mean they're shy.
Shyness is is basicallyfear-based.
I know plenty of people,including my wife, who is an
introvert, but she's gottremendous confidence as well.
SPEAKER_01 (05:53):
Yep.
Yeah.
And you know what else?
I'm sitting here thinking aboutit, is that like a lot a lot of
things are out of your controlanyway.
Imagine you talk into somebodysix in the morning and they're
they just had a terriblemorning, and you ask them a
question about who they'revoting for, and it's the last
thing they want to hear, andthey can curse you out, and then
(06:15):
you think it's your fault, butit's really nothing that she
could do, right?
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (06:19):
That's right.
I'm just there.
I'm just asking a question, andI've got every right to do that,
but you know, fear exaggeratesand it tells you it lies to you.
It tells you this is terrible,you're awful, you have no
business being here, and youcan, you know, and f when it
comes to writing, you can talkyourself out of even getting
started because you're listeningto your fears and they're lying
(06:39):
to you.
SPEAKER_01 (06:40):
Yeah.
Talk to us about writing.
Uh you know, I I feel like nowmore than ever, I think it's
it's very important to write,especially with AI, with our
phones.
I do think it's a differencebetween typing some typing notes
on your phone versus writingthem out, or or at least
journaling.
(07:00):
You know, I've I've done both.
I've journaled on my phone, I'vejournaled on paper.
I just feel like I writedifferently when I'm actually
writing.
It's almost like I have thesephilosophical thoughts that I
didn't know I had when Iactually write.
SPEAKER_00 (07:18):
Sure, but you know what I think is happening is
that the act of writing, youknow, with a pen and a paper,
that slows down the process.
Your mind is going a mile aminute, but it can't get through
the pen fast enough.
And so that slows it down and itmakes you, you know, just
inadvertently focus a little bitmore on what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01 (07:37):
Yeah.
And then, you know, youmentioned folks can be have some
fear of writing and fear ofmaybe the the thoughts that come
on that page when you Right.
SPEAKER_00 (07:47):
Oh man, there's so many fears.
I mean, there's fear of notbeing perfect, of being judged,
of failing, of you know, all ofthose kinds of things that are
going on.
And it's I think important torealize what it is you're afraid
of and why you're afraid.
I mean, what is it about failurethat is so mortifying?
And uh, once you get a handle onthose answers, then I think
(08:11):
that's one step closer to doingsomething courageous.
I can give you I can give youone example of being reckless.
All right.
This is my uh I play drums.
Uh Ringo Starr taught me how toplay drums.
He doesn't know it, but when theBeatles hit the scene, I, you
know, watched Ringo and listenedto the records and taught myself
(08:33):
how to play drums.
All right, fast forward.
My son James is a professionaldrummer, and he was visiting me
in uh DC.
We went to a jazz club that hada jam session.
And I asked James, are you gonnago up there and play?
He goes, No, I should havelistened.
He had enough self-awareness toknow that this, you know, this
(08:53):
was not necessarily gonna be agood fit for him.
He was much more of aperfectionist, and I had no
fear.
I just went swaggering up there.
I took the sticks from the housedrummer, and they called
something 4-4 medium swing.
I can do that.
So, you know, I'm great.
And then a couple of hornplayers got up to play.
I found out later they had justplayed a gig at the Kennedy
(09:16):
Center.
So I'm in over my head and Idon't know it.
So they call something, theycount it down, they're flying,
and I'm still taxiing, right?
You know you're in trouble whenduring the song the house
drummer sidles up to me andsays, I'll take over.
So here I am trying to switchhands.
It was a major fail.
(09:38):
And that taught me that I neededto learn how to do jazz
drumming.
So I, you know, James, teach mehow to do this.
And he very patiently tried toget me, you know, the next step.
I joined a jazz workshop anddiscovered when this guy brings
us together for two hours everyweek to play jazz, jazz is
(09:58):
improv.
It's failing all the time.
It's like improv comedy or life.
Life is improv.
We have no idea where thisconversation is going to go.
We're making it up as we go.
And so that's a that was a reallife lesson about failure
because if we are in any kind ofin the moment interaction with
(10:18):
someone, the potential forfailure, saying something stupid
or whatever, is there.
You know, a conversation with ayou know a pretty young woman,
you know, that could go wrong.
But you know, it's all part ofthe life.
SPEAKER_01 (10:32):
Yes, it it can go wrong and and learn it, learn
for next time, right?
Right.
There you go.
There you go.
All right, you just keepchatting, you keep talking,
figure it out.
But and I just think that's thethat's the main thing about
failure is that you you youlearn.
And you will have more failuresthan successes, right?
(10:55):
And a successful career.
SPEAKER_00 (10:59):
Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, look at baseball.
I mean, if you've got a 400average, that's slugger
territory, but that meansyou've, you know, whiffed 60% of
the time.
SPEAKER_01 (11:09):
Yeah.
And and people don't realizethat.
Most times you go up to bat,you're going to strike out.
You're going to whiff.
You just need a few hits.
Same with sales, same withphotography.
You take a hundred pictures andyou probably only get three most
quality pictures to actuallyshow, you know, the client,
(11:29):
right?
There you go.
You know, so it you're going tofail more times than not.
And so not taking the failure soseriously and and and even going
into action, just understandingthat what's meant to be is gonna
happen.
SPEAKER_00 (11:44):
You know, exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (11:45):
But you have to do it.
You have to do it, right?
You gotta you know, but as we'resitting down talking about it,
I'm even thinking about itmyself of understanding, having
a more self-awareness in I feellike journaling in writing can
help with that.
SPEAKER_00 (12:03):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I journal every day.
I journal every day.
And it's not for everybody, butI mean, I've been journaling
since I was, I don't know, 10years old, something like that.
I mean, it's evolved.
I mean, I think my first realactual journaling entry was when
I was 19 and I'd just broken upmy with my girlfriend, and I
(12:24):
wrote, you know, today I didprobably the dumbest thing I've
ever done.
But it, you know, fast forward,it it I journal every morning,
basically looking at the eventsof the day before.
And, you know, bas for the mostpart, it's just the facts.
This is what happened.
But more often than not, there'ssomething that requires me to
(12:45):
elaborate on, you know, to askmyself, why did I do that?
Why did I say that?
What can I do about this?
Thinking onto the page.
And so, yeah, journaling hasbeen a great place to work
things through.
SPEAKER_01 (12:58):
What so what has that done for you?
Being able to really look atthings kind of critically.
SPEAKER_00 (13:04):
I thought, well, you use the word self-aware, and I
think that is the key here.
That's the goal, because weoften just kind of stumble
through life and and neverreally look at it critically,
never really look at ourselvescritically.
And, you know, uh there was I Ican give you one example again.
My uh youngest son died of aheroin overdose of 14 years ago
(13:28):
now.
And I went through griefcounseling for two and a half
years.
And at the end of it, my griefcounselor said, You don't really
need me anymore because you askyourself the right questions
when you journal.
So journaling and it and and alot of these grief experiences
made their way into my writingas well.
(13:49):
I mean, uh I've written sixmystery suspense thriller
novels, and grief and lossundergird all of them because
it's part of my protagonist'sstory.
SPEAKER_01 (13:59):
Yeah, it's actually part of your story, how you even
got there.
So with grieving, right, andhealing through that too.
We talk about healing, askingyourself certain questions for
folks that's going through thatnow or may go through that,
right?
What does that look likeactually healing through
(14:21):
writing?
SPEAKER_00 (14:22):
Whoa, that's that's a powerful question.
And a lot of people who've gonethrough a loss, experienced a
loss, will ask me, you know,does time heal?
You know, is this ever going toget better?
And, you know, I can say thattime changes you.
(14:42):
I'm not sure I don't even knowif healing is the right word,
but I think that being able tobe mindful of the moment and
allow yourself to have thefeelings.
You know, I don't want toovergeneralize, but in my
experience, women get it.
You know, they are okay withcrying.
(15:02):
It's an emotional safety valve.
Whereas guys, or at least as faras you know, what it's like for
me, it's a sign of weakness.
You know, we tend to kind ofhold it in, but it doesn't make
it go away.
It just corrodes and festers.
And my hunch is, and I have nodata to back this up, but look
at all the mass shootings, withwith one or two exceptions, it's
(15:27):
all guys.
SPEAKER_02 (15:27):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:28):
And my hunch is that these are guys who are dealing
with unresolved grief and angerto the point where the tears
have become bullets.
SPEAKER_02 (15:41):
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:44):
So which means, guys, we need to talk this out.
Talk to it, talk about it with aprofessional, someone who really
knows what they're doing andknows the questions to ask you.
A lot of guys resist counselingbecause it's like, well, I don't
want anybody to tell me what todo.
They're not telling you what todo.
It's a safe place where you cantalk things out, and it's their
(16:06):
questions that will give you theinner clarity that you need to
know how to go forward.
It's not like some, it's notlike somebody's telling you what
to do.
It's like you find your ownanswers.
SPEAKER_01 (16:18):
Yeah, that's that's uh the way you put that is is
perfect.
You find your own answers, andthen you people just think, you
know, hey, you go to therapy andthen that's it.
You you have to do some work foryourself.
unknown (16:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (16:34):
Right?
Yep.
These questions that they ask,you have to really think about
that, right?
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (16:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (16:41):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (16:45):
Well, I mean, you gotta you get to know yourself.
And and I think that's goes backto self-awareness, what you were
talking about.
The and and and that then meansthat you can become effective in
the moment.
Because that's the only time wehave any control over something
is right now.
And right now.
And right now.
It's you know, now is alwayshere.
(17:06):
So, you know, we don't need towaste our time regretting
whatever stupid thing we did orwhat was done to us.
We don't have to worry aboutfearing something that's gonna
happen because that hasn'thappened yet.
We're in the moment and we canaffect the future.
SPEAKER_01 (17:19):
Yeah.
You you get an opportunity tounderstand, especially when you
say you know yourself, you getan opportunity to understand why
I feel certain emotions, right?
SPEAKER_00 (17:31):
Because emotions just they happen to you.
You have no real control overwhat your emotions are.
And that then is a signal.
All right.
I mean, an emotion there'snothing wrong with emotions.
Emotions are morally neutral,they just are, and they happen
for a reason, and then it's amatter of finding out what the
reason is and and dealing withthat core issue of whatever's
(17:53):
coming up.
SPEAKER_01 (17:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (17:55):
And I'm not for the record, I'm not a psychologist,
I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm justa guy.
I'm just trying to figure itout.
SPEAKER_01 (18:02):
You got experience.
You got experience.
And I think with these emotions,they they become really good
indicators of of how you'refeeling.
And what's great about we wetalk about self-awareness.
What bothers you might notbother me.
SPEAKER_00 (18:19):
Bingo.
SPEAKER_01 (18:20):
So that's why the self-awareness and and somebody
saying, Well, why does thatbother you?
You're like, Yeah, why why doesthat bother me?
I think journaling and andreally like going through your
days and going through certainmoments is so key.
SPEAKER_00 (18:38):
It's so uh I get the impression you journal.
SPEAKER_01 (18:40):
Yeah, I journal not as consistently as I should, but
it's so many times where I'vejournaled and found things out
about myself by doing that, youknow.
SPEAKER_00 (18:53):
And I would my hunch is you tell me if this resonates
with you.
One of the things I'vediscovered about writing,
whether it's journaling orwriting a novel, is this what I
call the spooky power of thesubconscious.
In other words, if you're justwriting, you know, asking
yourself what if or why, andthen just write and not pause to
(19:13):
go, oh, I gotta make thispretty.
It's gotta be writerly or fancyor whatever.
Just writing bypasses thatcritical school, you know, your
mom on your shoulder going, youcan't say that.
You know, it and it just itbypasses the critical editor,
and it's and it's like taking asip, that those questions, like
(19:34):
taking a sip, and the act ofwriting causes that stuff to
come out of your subconsciousthrough the fingers and onto the
page.
Has that been has that been doesthat resonate with you?
SPEAKER_01 (19:46):
Yeah, which is why I said in the beginning, I have
these thoughts that come to me,and it's like, wow, me writing
it, and me actually writing itis a lot deeper than how I can
express it through talking aboutit or speaking about it.
SPEAKER_00 (20:02):
There's there's a class I I teach a class on
memoir writing, and there was aguy who took my class, and he
was writing a memoir about hishis the death of his wife, and
he told me that he went back tohis journals to kind of refresh
his memory, and he said, I'dforgotten how angry I was.
And that then tells me that bywriting it down, it siphoned off
(20:28):
the anger, got it onto the page.
Now he can look at itobjectively, and because the
anger isn't crippling himanymore, he was able to move
forward in his life.
SPEAKER_01 (20:38):
Yeah.
Because we shove we shove theseemotions down, especially may
happen a long time ago.
And like you said, I'm healed.
Potentially you could just betaking out those emotions and
pushing them down.
SPEAKER_00 (20:49):
Oh man, because we tend to our society tends to
anesthetize the pain.
You know, alcohol does that, anynumber of things that we do to
fill up, you know, and numb, youknow, the painfulness.
And it it doesn't make it goaway, it just festers and
corrodes.
And it and it will manifestitself, but often in a
dysfunctional way that is eitherhurtful to us or people we love
(21:14):
or others who are around us.
SPEAKER_01 (21:16):
Wow.
Yeah.
So we have to process us, it'smeant we have to process it.
And you know, for me growing up,like you said, it was weakness,
right?
So being being sad, being angry.
SPEAKER_00 (21:29):
Oh man, anger.
You said something with theanger, I want to just say one
quick thing about that, becauseI've been doing a lot of
thinking about it as well.
And it seems to me, based on thepeople I know, that if you're
not able in some way to let goof that anger, you're you're
(21:50):
doomed to continue to to dwellon it and let it fester and
corrode and and it preoccupiesyour life to the point where
you're not able to be cleansedof it.
It's it's it's a and it's aletting go thing.
And I and I don't have a quickanswer on how one lets go, but
(22:12):
it would seem to me that wouldbe the goal.
How can I let this go so thatit's not pulling me down?
It's it's like an undertow thatprevents you from really living
up to your potential because allyour energy is going toward this
thing that you can't changeanymore.
SPEAKER_01 (22:30):
Yeah, yeah.
And you ruminate on it, right?
You don't actually accept it orfeel the emotion, just feeling
it.
SPEAKER_00 (22:41):
Yeah, yeah.
I think, yeah, I think there's Ithink there's something to that
about getting it out there, butI think that you can get it out
there over and over and overagain, and pretty soon, you
know, you're kind of in the zoneof being angry all the time.
I'm not sure that's the ultimatesolution.
Yeah.
I'm I'm thinking thatforgiveness is probably the key.
(23:03):
And I and it doesn't meanwaiting for someone to tell you
I'm sorry.
I mean, that that wouldcertainly, I think, accelerate
the healing process.
But at some point, I think youneed to make the choice that
you're not gonna dwell on thisanymore.
What whoever did you knowsomething bad to you, they did
it, it was terrible, but yougotta let it go and move on and
(23:29):
move forward because otherwiseyou're just stuck.
You're just gonna be stuck.
SPEAKER_01 (23:33):
Yeah, 100%.
I think it's uh like you said,get it out.
Forgiveness, right?
Forgive it.
And then look for the benefit onthe other side of it.
SPEAKER_00 (23:47):
Yeah.
And and let me let me go back toforgiveness, because uh, you
know, I agree I appreciate thisopportunity to think through
these things, becauseforgiveness, you know, may not
be the right word to use becauseI I can already hear somebody
saying I will never be able toforgive that behavior.
Yeah.
Understood, understood, becauseyou know, if someone did
(24:07):
something really bad to you,that it really is unforgivable.
But I think though, thatforgiving, and I'd have to kind
of study this, forgiveforgiveness doesn't mean
absolution.
It doesn't mean, oh,everything's fine, you know,
everything's cool, you'reforgiven, you're okay.
No, I don't know if that'snecessarily what I'm saying.
(24:30):
It just means I'm choosing to nolonger let your behavior define
who I am.
I need to get beyond this, andby getting on with it, I have to
let it go.
And I'm I'm putting you out ofmy life now.
SPEAKER_01 (24:45):
Yeah, I I'm not allowing you to have power of my
That's it.
That's that's it.
Yes, well said.
I'm letting go of you, havingcontrol of my day-to-day.
Because like you said, you canbe angry for years for something
that happened to you from yearsago and and allowing that to
still have control of you.
SPEAKER_00 (25:06):
Yep.
You said it so well.
Obviously, you've wrestled withthis, or at least that's
something that this podcastdeals with.
SPEAKER_01 (25:14):
Yeah, yeah.
And and I had a I had a a gueston talking about forgiveness,
and she is a forgiveness coach,actually, helping folks forgive
people.
And it's forgiveness on variousdifferent levels, right?
You have some people that youreally need to forgive, that
some pain you are reallyholding, and and then you have
(25:35):
kind of these lower things thatyou need to forgive people, and
so it's a practice, actually.
And she mentions that it's apractice to forgive, right?
SPEAKER_00 (25:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:46):
Letting it go for you.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (25:50):
And I mean, and that, and you know, you can do
that in your daily life as well.
I mean, you know, you and yourwife get into it about
something, and it's a it's like,does this need is this a big
deal or do we need to talk aboutit?
I mean, it's it's a choice.
You know, some things don't riseto the level of, you know,
nuclear war.
SPEAKER_01 (26:11):
No, you you you put it right on the head.
And I'm just and I I'm justthinking here because writing,
especially back in ancienttimes, writing for them was
everything, right?
To the point where we still reada lot of those ancient teaching
teachings today, and they stillhold true.
SPEAKER_00 (26:33):
Well, and you know, I think there would I Jesus
Christ Superstar is a great, youknow, rock opera, and it was
it's been around for a longtime.
And there's a song in therewhere the lyric is basically, I
think it's Judas asking Jesus,you know, why did you come in a
time when there was no masscommunication?
And I think that the I'vethought about that a lot, and I
(26:55):
think the answer is that the waythey communicated was in
writing.
And writing is cool because thewords stay the same, but the
person, you can read the samewords over and over again at
different times, and you takesomething different away from
it.
The the sentiment is the same,the words are the same, but
(27:17):
you're different, and you seething, you see something
different in that written word.
So it's that, it's the thesteadiness and the stability and
the and the the impermanence ofthe words, but we are evolving
and changing.
SPEAKER_01 (27:35):
You go through so many different things in life,
different situations,experiences, your current times
are different.
It's so important to to kind ofgo back to those things, right?
Yeah, I think so.
You know, and and it's a totallydifferent meaning.
Almost to the point where it'ssome things that I've read and
I'm like, I I didn't fully Ithought I understood that, but I
(27:56):
did not fully grasp that.
SPEAKER_00 (28:00):
Yes, I can give you another quick example, and that
is when my sister died.
My sister took her life in 1980.
That's a long time ago.
And I and I didn't go throughgrief counseling, but there was
somebody in my life who said,move toward the pain.
It was good advice, and I had noidea what it meant.
It took me until my son died tokind of get the concept is that
(28:24):
as I we we talked about earlier,you mine the pain and get it out
on paper one way or the other,journaling, writing stories, and
that's when you're reallyprocessing it and taking it
seriously and trying to learnfrom the experience.
SPEAKER_01 (28:41):
And I think especially men, we we look for
everything that avoids pain.
And even to the point where it'speople out there who are
avoiding they're avoiding painthat they don't even know that
they're numbing.
SPEAKER_00 (28:56):
Yeah.
Well, I mean your podcast,playing injured.
I mean, if you're injured, youyou're you got pain.
SPEAKER_01 (29:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you gotta go towards it, youknow.
And it's tough.
I mean, it's not easy.
It's it's one of the toughestthings to do.
SPEAKER_00 (29:12):
And sometimes it's wise not to play through the
injury.
Exactly.
You gotta be able to discern,you know, when you shake it off
and when you need to heal.
SPEAKER_01 (29:21):
Yeah, yeah.
And so you mentioned how you'veyou've also used kind of the
pain that you've gone throughand expressed it through your
creativity of writing fictionnovels, right?
Right, yep.
To write stories about it.
And uh, you know, it it's it'scrazy because I've had thoughts
about, you know, certainsituations, painful situations
(29:42):
that I've been through.
I'm like, man, I would love toto to give this to Netflix to
make that an episode about this.
But you've turned books intothat.
How has that helped you to to toto express kind of the things
you've gone through intocreative endeavors?
SPEAKER_00 (29:59):
That's a really good question.
And and the interesting answeris that I didn't set out to heal
by writing stories.
I Set out because basically CNNmade me an editor and I'd been a
reporter and I needed a creativeoutlet.
Editing was tedious.
It was fault finding, but itpaid well.
So I started to write fiction.
(30:21):
And what I ended up stumblingonto was write what you know.
It's the, you know, rule numberone for writers.
And what I knew was grief andloss.
And so my first chapter of myfirst novel is My Sister's
Suicide.
I was on the scene that day.
And so I just wrote it.
Not to heal, but to accesssomething that was powerful.
(30:43):
And it wasn't until I lookedback over the six novels that I
realized, holy cow, that'swhat's going on here.
And so it was the act ofwriting, and and basically I'm a
slow learner.
So it was just realizing afterso long that I'm going, whoa,
this is what I'm doing, and it'sreally helping.
SPEAKER_01 (31:07):
And so you you just kind of stumbled upon that,
honestly.
Stumbled on it, yeah, totally.
Tell me this.
So we you and I, before we hitrecord, you talked about how
you've written from a femaleperspective.
SPEAKER_02 (31:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (31:18):
Some of these novels, right?
And I think a lot of the menwould love to learn.
First of all, I would love tolearn that how you even got to
that place of writing from afemale perspective.
SPEAKER_00 (31:27):
Fair enough.
I was, I was, uh when I firststarted writing fiction, someone
suggested that I should write ina way that stretches who I am.
Never been a woman, at least notin this life.
In fact, there was a woman at awriter's, I was giving a write a
talk at a uh bookstore, and awoman in the back raised her
hand and said, What do you wearwhen you write?
(31:50):
You know, as if I, you know, Ihave my you know, leotards on
and my high heels.
And it's not, I'm a straightguy, you know.
I just write.
I I've what I discovered though,Josh, is that emotions are not
gender specific.
We all have the exact sameemotions.
It's just that in my life, thewomen are more willing to share
(32:13):
their emotions and they're morearticulate about the emotions
they share.
And so I was at CNN for 25years.
That's 25 years worth of youngwomen in their early to mid-20s
who would tell me their storiesabout their boyfriends and their
careers and their families.
And I learned what it's like tobe a woman.
There was one anchor I workedwith, gorgeous.
(32:33):
And I remember asking her,what's it like for guys to come
on to you all the time?
And she said, and this reallywas an eye-opener, she said, I
can tell in the first 20 secondsif I'm safe.
I never have to worry aboutbeing safe in a conversation.
And that's when I realized thatone thing it means to be a woman
(32:55):
is that you have to playdefense.
Women have to be on defense.
It's just the way it is.
And that was an eye-opener.
And that just is one thing thathelped fuel my understanding of
what it's like to be a woman.
So these women, many of them,became beta readers.
They would read early drafts ofthe novel and tell me if I'm
(33:16):
getting it right or wrong.
SPEAKER_01 (33:18):
So you got a real, a real good opportunity to really
learn.
SPEAKER_00 (33:23):
Because I listened.
Guys don't listen to women.
You know, they hear, they hearthe, you know, you need to take
out the trap or whatever it is.
You know, they feel like they'rebeing scolded and they tune them
out.
They're they're saying somethingand you need to listen.
It goes back to what we'retalking about in being
self-aware.
Women can help a guy beself-aware.
(33:46):
You know, granted, there's a lotof, I don't know, a lot of
emotional turmoil that can begoing on in one of those
conversations, but you need totake a step back and maybe talk
to somebody who's aprofessional, go to your
journal, whatever it is, to kindof figure out what is it that
this person is saying?
Is it valid or not?
You know, maybe it is, maybe notall entirely.
(34:08):
Maybe there's somemisunderstandings going on.
But again, you know, in a may ina male-female relationship, that
can be highly charged, and weneed to get a handle on it and
try to find ways to work itthrough and listen to who's
telling us we need to change.
SPEAKER_01 (34:31):
Yeah.
You may need to listen.
Yeah.
For sure.
What other what other things domen need to do that they don't
do?
What other mistakes?
From your, I mean, from youbeing able to do all this kind
of research and get thatperspective, which is Oh man, I
learned I learned a lot.
SPEAKER_00 (34:49):
I've learned a lot from my conversations with with
women.
My wife and I have been married47 years.
We're still together, eventhough our son died.
And that can kill a marriage.
But, you know, for some reasonwe were able to get through
that, primarily because wedidn't compare our grief to the
other person.
We got help separately.
(35:09):
But as far as relationships areconcerned, I think that from
what I understand from the womenI've talked to, guys tend, and
this is this is especially truefrom really attractive women.
Guys think that they're payingthem a compliment by going, oh,
you're so beautiful.
They hear that all the time.
(35:30):
That's boring.
What they really want is toplay, to banter, you know, to
not be put up on a pedestal, butto be, you know, treated as if
they're a, you know, thatthere's there's uh that they're
a real person, that they can beseen.
And so, you know, listening towhat they have to say instead of
trying to impress them with yourbank account or your
(35:52):
high-powered career.
The other thing that goes wrongis that, you know, guys tend to
get needy.
You know, once once it oncethere's something going on here,
you know, all of a sudden theconfident person that the woman
was attracted to goes out thewindow, and all of a sudden, you
know, they they feel they, youknow, need, you know, constant
(36:15):
affirmation or whatever.
And so, you know, guys can betheir worst enemy in a
relationship.
SPEAKER_01 (36:22):
Yeah.
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (36:23):
Is this making any sense?
SPEAKER_01 (36:25):
Yeah, 100%.
Yeah, a lot of it.
A lot of sense of needingness.
And that's where I think itcomes back down to why I feel
like it's so important for mento be self-aware.
SPEAKER_00 (36:40):
Self-aware.
Let me say one other quickthing.
There was another woman I workedwith at CNN, also gorgeous, and
she was going through a divorce.
And at one point she saidwistfully, she said, I always
seem to fall for the bad boys.
And I said, Why?
And she was stunned.
It was like no one had everasked her that before.
(37:01):
And so she thought a minute andshe said, and and she didn't
mean to sound conceited orarrogant, she said, they just
they always they're the ones whohave the confidence to approach
me.
And I think that she was on tosomething because the bad boys
have the confidence.
The problem is the bad boys arebad, they get mean and
(37:25):
controlling, and and the niceguys keep losing.
Here's my suggestion.
If you're a nice guy, it's okayto be nice because that's a
great quality, being kind, butwhat's attractive is confidence.
And confidence doesn't mean youhave to be mean.
SPEAKER_01 (37:43):
Yeah.
Confident, courageous andboundaries, especially as a nice
person.
You gotta have some value.
SPEAKER_00 (37:53):
Oh man, oh man.
And boundaries go both ways.
SPEAKER_01 (37:56):
Yeah, 100%.
And and thinking aboutself-awareness, though, you
talked about neediness, forinstance.
Being able to to write andjournal about, okay, why is it
that I need this person?
SPEAKER_00 (38:13):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Oh man.
Oh man.
That is probably, if you were tolook at my journals, and I'm not
gonna show them to you, thankyou very much, for asking, you
know, if you were to go there,you would see me struggling with
that issue for decades.
And I would learn.
I mean, you know, I would learnin the process, but it's like it
(38:35):
was a recurring theme.
It's like, oh, everything's gotno, it's not.
Yeah, here it is again.
What am I what have I learnedfrom the last time?
SPEAKER_01 (38:44):
Yeah.
It's like you need somethingoutside of yourself, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
It's like uh I need something, Ineed that new promotion, I need
that car, I need that, that,that, that, that high-rise
apartment, I need that that newpurse or that new, you know, new
(39:04):
new clothes, new everything tomake me feel oh man.
SPEAKER_00 (39:09):
Sad.
There was there was an interviewI did, a guy asked me, how do
how do how do I define success?
Which I think is a fabulousquestion.
And I'm not sure my answer wasso fabulous, but my answer is I
think I defined success by beingable to do what you're good at
and what you love.
(39:30):
And when you do those twothings, the success is its own
reward because you're in thezone.
SPEAKER_01 (39:37):
Yeah.
Well, how do I say?
SPEAKER_00 (39:39):
Comes from within.
SPEAKER_01 (39:40):
Yeah, it comes from within.
And I, you know, uh I I feellike I'm on that journey right
now.
Still young, right?
I'm 29.
SPEAKER_00 (39:49):
God, I used to be 29.
SPEAKER_01 (39:52):
And uh just yeah, I think a lot of men are probably
on this journey of uh looking tofeel whole within.
unknown (40:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (40:03):
You know.
SPEAKER_00 (40:04):
And let me stop you just for a second, because
you're making a lot of sense.
But, you know, a lot of times,and this goes back to
relationships, you know, peoplesay, well, you know, I'm I won't
be whole until I find that, youknow, person who completes me.
And I think I and I understandthat, and I and I think it's a
valid feeling, and I know peoplefeel that way.
But what I think works better iswhen you come to a person who is
(40:29):
also whole, and you're whole,and the two of you together make
something that's even stronger.
But it's not like I need you tocomplete me because that depends
then on the other person.
That person goes away and youfreak out.
SPEAKER_01 (40:45):
And like we said, right?
You can't control anotherperson.
There you go.
A lot of guys, a lot of bad boystry that.
Yeah, you can't control her.
And even as a nice guy or a niceperson or a good person, you'd
have no idea the other person'sbackground, histories, trauma,
(41:10):
whatever the case may be, right?
That's right, that's right.
Um, which is why yourself-awareness and your
boundaries and you beingcomplete is so important, right?
SPEAKER_00 (41:20):
Oh man, yes.
You've done a lot of workalready, man.
I wish I wish I were talkinglike this when I was 29.
SPEAKER_01 (41:28):
Well, you know, that's what happens when you
actually go through you gothrough things and learn it.
SPEAKER_02 (41:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (41:35):
You go through things and you know, once you
start to go through a lot, youand and I think also to just
being self-aware of afterlearning something, right?
I don't know if a lot of peoplewhen they feel some type of pain
or they go through a struggle orthey feel like they've made a
(41:55):
mistake, if they go back andreally take a look at it, which
is why I think writing and andand having practices like this
is so important.
Talking to people, like wementioned.
SPEAKER_00 (42:06):
Yep.
SPEAKER_01 (42:07):
So they can see your blind spots that you don't see.
SPEAKER_00 (42:10):
Oh yeah.
Oh man, blind spots, that'shuge.
SPEAKER_01 (42:13):
And so you you start to just learn a ton, and then
you know, you you start to see,okay, what's the work that I
need to to to put some attentionto?
So um, and it's still it's stilla journey for me.
So I I mean I would love to hearfrom you.
You you talked about for decadesyou had, you know, needs.
(42:34):
Yeah.
Like you needed, right?
Or things outside of you thatwould make you feel complete,
right?
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (42:41):
Yep.
SPEAKER_01 (42:42):
I guess what have you learned from decades of of
going through that?
SPEAKER_00 (42:46):
I think probably the biggest thing I've learned is to
not give up, A, learning from mymistakes, and B, not being
afraid to try again.
And what I've discovered is thattrying again after having
evaluated things, I've I've comeup with a new approach, or I've
(43:08):
been more aware of, well, don'tgo there because that didn't
work, and uh, and and learningfrom the mistakes that I've
made.
So that I'm at a point nowwhere, you know, I think I feel
much more complete and much moresatisfied, much more self-aware,
much more a whole and completeperson, responsible for my own
(43:30):
happiness.
And joy, even, and even joy.
SPEAKER_01 (43:34):
Yeah.
So we talk about control or nothaving much of it.
Or how have you handled,especially and this this
definitely comes up for me,especially learning the lesson
of wanting to behold fromwithin.
How do you handle situationsthat don't go the way you wanted
it to go?
(43:56):
And I and Well, I swear.
And then another part to this,right?
Not handling things that didn'tgo the way you wanted to go, but
or yeah, that didn't go the wayyou wanted it to go, but also it
ended up being it ended upworking out perfectly in the
(44:16):
long run, right?
So things that didn't go the wayyou wanted it to go, how you
handled it, and then lookingback on it, you're probably glad
that it didn't go that waybecause it went this way, that
that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00 (44:29):
Yeah, and I don't know if I can come up with any
particular specific examples,but I think that the the
underlying theme that keepsmanifesting itself all through
my life in terms of the mistakesand the learning and so on goes
back to taking a breath, youknow, getting back to the
moment.
You know, it's it as I said, youknow, the emotions are they're
(44:53):
morally neutral.
They're the they're just there.
And it's okay to feel them andit's okay to be aware of what
they are, but then it's a matterof understanding them and being
in the moment.
If you if you're in the moment,I think that that's where you
can find some at least temporarypeace that enables you to be
able to look more objectively atwhat's going on and and then
(45:17):
kind of uh uh plotting your wayforward.
I don't think it's any morecomplicated than that.
Because if you're in the momentand you're and you're taking a
breath and you're allowingyourself to get calm and to look
at things objectively, I thinkthose are the that those are the
ingredients that you'll then tobe able to utilize as you
formulate the next steps.
(45:39):
Nothing, you know, it's it's Idon't think it's any more
complicated than that, butthat's enough.
SPEAKER_01 (45:45):
Yeah, 100%.
More than enough.
SPEAKER_00 (45:48):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (45:48):
More than enough.
To take a breath, to take somespace.
SPEAKER_00 (45:53):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (45:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (45:56):
I mean, you know, guys hear this all the time.
I need some space.
And they're taking care ofthemselves.
You know, the woman is saying, Ineed some space.
And, you know, I don't know howmany guys, I I've been out of
the picture for a while, but I'mnot sure how many guys go, I
need some space.
And it's like, no, you need tobe with me.
Why aren't you texting me?
(46:17):
You know, those kind of things.
I need some space.
It's probably got a somethinggoing on there that's uh making
sense.
SPEAKER_01 (46:25):
Give me some space.
And and I mean, as men, we needspace to take our time with with
a lot of different things,right?
To think about I I loved how yousaid to think about like your
yesterday.
SPEAKER_02 (46:43):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (46:43):
Understand why did I do certain things, right?
Well, I didn't feel like goingto the gym.
Well, why didn't I?
I woke up, passed my alarm.
Well, why did I do that?
Okay, I I stayed up late thenight before and you know, maybe
I had too many to drink.
Okay, well, how could we fixthat?
I it's a lot of things that weneed to do to take some space
(47:06):
and take some time.
SPEAKER_00 (47:07):
And if we're aw and if we're of aware of the moment,
then when that choice, you know,you know, are we gonna have that
third drink or are we gonna callit a night?
SPEAKER_01 (47:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (47:17):
Because I know what I felt like the next morning.
SPEAKER_01 (47:19):
Exactly.
That happens all the time.
All the time, right?
Where you you've made a choice,right?
And then that that situationcomes up again.
You got the opportunity to toredeem yourself.
And then a lot of times they'relike, Well, uh, I can just do
it, and on the back half, I canfigure something out on the back
(47:40):
half instead of not making thedecision, you know?
And so um no, it's it's so muchto learn.
And and I think that, I thinkmore than anything, I think what
I'm learning is justself-awareness and and how
important that is.
And I don't know, John, if Ithought I would come walk away
from this this conversation withyou thinking that.
SPEAKER_00 (48:02):
Well, is that a I think that's a good thing,
right?
SPEAKER_01 (48:05):
It's a great thing, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (48:07):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (48:08):
It's a great thing.
John, where can people find you?
Where can they get in touch withyou and kind of learn more about
your store?
SPEAKER_00 (48:15):
Best best way to do it is through my website, which
is my name.com.
That's johndedakis.com.
I'll spell it because it's atricky Greek name.
J-O-H-N D as in dog e, d as indog A, K-I-S as in Sam,
johndedakis.com tells about mybooks, my upcoming events, my uh
(48:38):
uh writing classes, my speaking,all that kind of stuff.
Plus, there are plenty of waysto get through to me by email on
several of those pages.
SPEAKER_01 (48:48):
Yeah, I'm looking at the website right now.
Another beautiful shirt.
You you probably got a lot ofshirts.
Yeah, another great one here.
Great photo.
And I'll make sure I put this inthe footnotes.
SPEAKER_02 (49:00):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (49:01):
Folks would be able to see this.
This is some some great stuff.
Thank you that I'm taking a lookat.
So, John, we appreciate yousharing.
I mean, just a ton of nuggetsand just your your history, your
experience, and I think it's alot of gold in this episode.
SPEAKER_00 (49:17):
So man, well, you brought it out.
Thanks, Josh.
This was fun.
SPEAKER_01 (49:25):
Free audio post production by alphonic.com.
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