Playing Injured
Playing Injured is the podcast for men who want to grow stronger in every area of life. Men everywhere face challenges, setbacks, and unseen battles, and how we respond defines the kind of men we become.
Hosted by Josh Dillingham and Mason Eddy, entrepreneurs and former collegiate athletes, Playing Injured ranks in the top 2% of podcasts globally with over 140 episodes.
Built on five pillars of growth: Faith, Family, Fitness, Finances, and Fun, the show delivers raw solo episodes, expert guests, and honest conversations. Josh and Mason equip men with the mindset, tools, and stories to build resilience, lead with strength, and thrive…even when life feels like they’re playing injured.
Playing Injured
From CNN Editor on How Writing Can Be a Way to Heal & Build Self-Awareness | John Dedakis (EP 144)
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
One of the main focuses of today's episode is how we can use writing as a way to heal. And today's guest is John Daday, who was a journalist for 45 years, including a stint as a White House correspondent during the Reagan era. John is also a former editor on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blazer. John is now a writing coach. He's an award-winning novelist. And we also talk about how writing can help with grief, with self-awareness, with understanding who we are. We also talk about fear and how taking small acts of courage is how we build confidence. And then we also talk about working through our feelings, forgiveness, letting go, things that men need to work on. Today's episode was amazing, and I can't wait for you guys to take a listen. I started off like this every episode. It's who is John and how does he spend his time today?
SPEAKER_00:Whoa, man. John's old. He's been around a while. So there's been a lot of a lot of 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 up going into journalism. As you said, for 45 years, I covered the White House when Reagan was president for the last three years of his presidency. Ended my uh journalism career at CNN, where I was an editor for 25 years. And while I was at CNN, I started writing novels. And that was basically I started writing them 30 years ago, but it took me 10 years to get the agent that I've got. And that progress, that process of trial and error, mostly error, got me to the point where I was able to deconstruct the writing process. So I've got six mystery suspense thriller novels under my belt, and I now teach people how to write novels and memoirs, and I'm a one-on-one writing coach.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So I I'll be making a call to you in the future about works.
SPEAKER_00:It works for me.
SPEAKER_01:But you mentioned something about even obviously, you know, saying you owed and experienced, but more so that you've evolved kind of over time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Through trial and error, a lot of error. A lot of us are afraid of error or fear.
SPEAKER_00:Right? Yep. Yep. Fear is fear is a huge, huge thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Walk me through that.
SPEAKER_00:We've we spend a lot of our time regretting the past and fearing the future, and we're no good in the moment. And fear is there the I I teach a class actually on teaching, on facing your fears. And what I've discovered in my long life is there's I call it the fear continuum. There's recklessness, that's the absence of fear. We just go and do it. There's caution, that's counting the 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 when we freeze. And there's courage, and that's the goal. But in order to be courageous, it doesn't mean the fear goes away. It means facing your fear and going forward anyway, like the guys did who stormed the beaches of Normandy. Were they afraid? They were terrified and they went forward anyway. That's fear in action. And so it's a matter of learning how to do that, whether it's living or writing or whatever.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I feel like folks know that, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's I gotta do it. What any tricks, anything you've done to have that courage, that courageous moment in times where you felt fear, what does that look like for you?
SPEAKER_00:I can give you one quick example from when I was covering the 1984 presidential primary. I was in uh Manchester, New Hampshire, and my assignment for the day was to do person on the street interviews. You know, who are you gonna vote for for president? Right. It's a pretty simple question. It took me 20 minutes to get the courage to ask the question for the first time. And I mean, I look back on it and was like, what was I afraid of? You know, I was afraid that somebody was gonna get pissed at me because it was six in the morning and you know, they hadn't had their coffee yet or whatever. But what I discovered is that once you get into the rhythm, once you do that thing that you're afraid of, there's a byproduct. The byproduct is confidence. You know, no one shot at you. It, you know, the world didn't blow up, and you were able to do it. And it makes it easier to do it the next time and so on.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You just made me think about it's uh a book called Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. One of them is self-assertiveness. That's one of the pillars. And a lot of people believe, oh, this person is self-assertive because that's just who they are, instead of thinking, no, they became that way by taking these small moments of courageous actions, and then over time they become this person that seems courageous or self-assertive and not realizing that they just had to take these moments, right?
SPEAKER_00:And that's true whether you're an extrovert or an introvert. I mean, extroverts do tend to be out there a little bit more. Introverts, obviously, they're a little more uh reserved, and that doesn't mean they're shy. Shyness is is basically fear-based. I know plenty of people, including my wife, who is an introvert, but she's got tremendous confidence as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. Yeah. And you know what else? I'm sitting here thinking about it, is that like a lot a lot of things are out of your control anyway. Imagine you talk into somebody six in the morning and they're they just had a terrible morning, and you ask them a question about who they're voting for, and it's the last thing they want to hear, and they can curse you out, and then you think it's your fault, but it's really nothing that she could do, right? Right.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. I'm just there. I'm just asking a question, and I've got every right to do that, but you know, fear exaggerates and it tells you it lies to you. It tells you this is terrible, you're awful, you have no business being here, and you can, you know, and f when it comes to writing, you can talk yourself out of even getting started because you're listening to your fears and they're lying to you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Talk to us about writing. Uh you know, I I feel like now more than ever, I think it's it's very important to write, especially with AI, with our phones. I do think it's a difference between typing some typing notes on your phone versus writing them out, or or at least journaling. You know, I've I've done both. I've journaled on my phone, I've journaled on paper. I just feel like I write differently when I'm actually writing. It's almost like I have these philosophical thoughts that I didn't know I had when I actually write.
SPEAKER_00:Sure, but you know what I think is happening is that the act of writing, you know, with a pen and a paper, that slows down the process. Your mind is going a mile a minute, but it can't get through the pen fast enough. And so that slows it down and it makes you, you know, just inadvertently focus a little bit more on what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And then, you know, you mentioned folks can be have some fear of writing and fear of maybe the the thoughts that come on that page when you Right.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, there's so many fears. I mean, there's fear of not being perfect, of being judged, of failing, of you know, all of those kinds of things that are going on. And it's I think important to realize what it is you're afraid of and why you're afraid. I mean, what is it about failure that is so mortifying? And uh, once you get a handle on those answers, then I think that's one step closer to doing something courageous. I can give you I can give you one example of being reckless. All right. This is my uh I play drums. Uh Ringo Starr taught me how to play drums. He doesn't know it, but when the Beatles hit the scene, I, you know, watched Ringo and listened to the records and taught myself how to play drums. All right, fast forward. My son James is a professional drummer, and he was visiting me in uh DC. We went to a jazz club that had a jam session. And I asked James, are you gonna go up there and play? He goes, No, I should have listened. He had enough self-awareness to know that this, you know, this was not necessarily gonna be a good fit for him. He was much more of a perfectionist, and I had no fear. I just went swaggering up there. I took the sticks from the house drummer, and they called something 4-4 medium swing. I can do that. So, you know, I'm great. And then a couple of horn players got up to play. I found out later they had just played a gig at the Kennedy Center. So I'm in over my head and I don't know it. So they call something, they count it down, they're flying, and I'm still taxiing, right? You know you're in trouble when during the song the house drummer sidles up to me and says, I'll take over. So here I am trying to switch hands. It was a major fail. And that taught me that I needed to learn how to do jazz drumming. So I, you know, James, teach me how to do this. And he very patiently tried to get me, you know, the next step. I joined a jazz workshop and discovered when this guy brings us together for two hours every week to play jazz, jazz is improv. It's failing all the time. It's like improv comedy or life. Life is improv. We have no idea where this conversation is going to go. We're making it up as we go. And so that's a that was a real life lesson about failure because if we are in any kind of in the moment interaction with someone, the potential for failure, saying something stupid or whatever, is there. You know, a conversation with a you know a pretty young woman, you know, that could go wrong. But you know, it's all part of the life.
SPEAKER_01: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 keep chatting, you keep talking, figure it out. But and I just think that's the that's the main thing about failure is that you you you learn. And you will have more failures than successes, right? And a successful career.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, look at baseball. I mean, if you've got a 400 average, that's slugger territory, but that means you've, you know, whiffed 60% of the time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And and people don't realize that. 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 with photography. You take a hundred pictures and you probably only get three most quality pictures to actually show, you know, the client, right? There you go. You know, so it you're going to fail more times than not. And so not taking the failure so seriously and and and even going into action, just understanding that what's meant to be is gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00:You know, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:But you have to do it. You have to do it, right? You gotta you know, but as we're sitting down talking about it, I'm even thinking about it myself of understanding, having a more self-awareness in I feel like journaling in writing can help with that.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Yeah. I journal every day. I journal every day. And it's not for everybody, but I mean, I've been journaling since I was, I don't know, 10 years old, something like that. I mean, it's evolved. I mean, I think my first real actual journaling entry was when I was 19 and I'd just broken up my with my girlfriend, and I wrote, you know, today I did probably the dumbest thing I've ever done. But it, you know, fast forward, it it I journal every morning, basically looking at the events of the day before. And, you know, bas for the most part, it's just the facts. This is what happened. But more often than not, there's something that requires me to elaborate on, you know, to ask myself, why did I do that? Why did I say that? What can I do about this? Thinking onto the page. And so, yeah, journaling has been a great place to work things through.
SPEAKER_01:What so what has that done for you? Being able to really look at things kind of critically.
SPEAKER_00:I thought, well, you use the word self-aware, and I think that is the key here. That's the goal, because we often just kind of stumble through life and and never really look at it critically, never really look at ourselves critically. And, you know, uh there was I I can give you one example again. My uh youngest son died of a heroin overdose of 14 years ago now. And I went through grief counseling for two and a half years. And at the end of it, my grief counselor said, You don't really need me anymore because you ask yourself the right questions when you journal. So journaling and it and and a lot of these grief experiences made their way into my writing as well. I mean, uh I've written six mystery suspense thriller novels, and grief and loss undergird all of them because it's part of my protagonist's story.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's actually part of your story, how you even got there. So with grieving, right, and healing through that too. We talk about healing, asking yourself certain questions for folks that's going through that now or may go through that, right? What does that look like actually healing through writing?
SPEAKER_00:Whoa, that's that's a powerful question. And a lot of people who've gone through a loss, experienced a loss, will ask me, you know, does time heal? You know, is this ever going to get better? And, you know, I can say that time changes you. I'm not sure I don't even know if healing is the right word, but I think that being able to be mindful of the moment and allow yourself to have the feelings. You know, I don't want to overgeneralize, but in my experience, women get it. You know, they are okay with crying. It's an emotional safety valve. Whereas guys, or at least as far as you know, what it's like for me, it's a sign of weakness. You know, we tend to kind of hold it in, but it doesn't make it go away. It just corrodes and festers. And my hunch is, and I have no data to back this up, but look at all the mass shootings, with with one or two exceptions, it's all guys.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And my hunch is that these are guys who are dealing with unresolved grief and anger to the point where the tears have become bullets.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So which means, guys, we need to talk this out. Talk to it, talk about it with a professional, someone who really knows what they're doing and knows the questions to ask you. A lot of guys resist counseling because it's like, well, I don't want anybody to tell me what to do. They're not telling you what to do. It's a safe place where you can talk things out, and it's their questions that will give you the inner clarity that you need to know how to go forward. It's not like some, it's not like somebody's telling you what to do. It's like you find your own answers.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's that's uh the way you put that is is perfect. You find your own answers, and then you people just think, you know, hey, you go to therapy and then that's it. You you have to do some work for yourself.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Right? Yep. These questions that they ask, you have to really think about that, right? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, you gotta you get to know yourself. And and I think that's goes back to self-awareness, what you were talking about. The and and and that then means that you can become effective in the moment. Because that's the only time we have any control over something is right now. And right now. And right now. It's you know, now is always here. So, you know, we don't need to waste our time regretting whatever stupid thing we did or what was done to us. We don't have to worry about fearing something that's gonna happen because that hasn't happened yet. We're in the moment and we can affect the future.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You you get an opportunity to understand, especially when you say you know yourself, you get an opportunity to understand why I feel certain emotions, right?
SPEAKER_00:Because emotions just they happen to you. You have no real control over what your emotions are. And that then is a signal. All right. I mean, an emotion there's nothing wrong with emotions. Emotions are morally neutral, they just are, and they happen for a reason, and then it's a matter of finding out what the reason is and and dealing with that core issue of whatever's coming up.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm not for the record, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm just a guy. I'm just trying to figure it out.
SPEAKER_01:You got experience. You got experience. And I think with these emotions, they they become really good indicators of of how you're feeling. And what's great about we we talk about self-awareness. What bothers you might not bother me.
SPEAKER_00:Bingo.
SPEAKER_01:So that's why the self-awareness and and somebody saying, Well, why does that bother you? You're like, Yeah, why why does that bother me? I think journaling and and really like going through your days and going through certain moments is so key.
SPEAKER_00:It's so uh I get the impression you journal.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I journal not as consistently as I should, but it's so many times where I've journaled and found things out about myself by doing that, you know.
SPEAKER_00:And I would my hunch is you tell me if this resonates with you. One of the things I've discovered about writing, whether it's journaling or writing a novel, is this what I call the spooky power of the subconscious. In other words, if you're just writing, you know, asking yourself what if or why, and then just write and not pause to go, oh, I gotta make this pretty. It's gotta be writerly or fancy or whatever. Just writing bypasses that critical school, you know, your mom on your shoulder going, you can't say that. You know, it and it just it bypasses the critical editor, and it's and it's like taking a sip, that those questions, like taking a sip, and the act of writing causes that stuff to come out of your subconscious through the fingers and onto the page. Has that been has that been does that resonate with you?
SPEAKER_01: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 it is a lot deeper than how I can express it through talking about it or speaking about it.
SPEAKER_00:There's there's a class I I teach a class on memoir writing, and there was a guy who took my class, and he was writing a memoir about his his the death of his wife, and he told me that he went back to his journals to kind of refresh his memory, and he said, I'd forgotten how angry I was. And that then tells me that by writing it down, it siphoned off the anger, got it onto the page. Now he can look at it objectively, and because the anger isn't crippling him anymore, he was able to move forward in his life.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Because we shove we shove these emotions down, especially may happen a long time ago. And like you said, I'm healed. Potentially you could just be taking out those emotions and pushing them down.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, because we tend to our society tends to anesthetize the pain. You know, alcohol does that, any number of things that we do to fill up, you know, and numb, you know, the painfulness. And it it doesn't make it go away, it just festers and corrodes. And it and it will manifest itself, but often in a dysfunctional way that is either hurtful to us or people we love or others who are around us.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Yeah. So we have to process us, it's meant 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:Oh man, anger. You said something with the anger, I want to just say one quick thing about that, because I've been doing a lot of thinking about it as well. And it seems to me, based on the people I know, that if you're not able in some way to let go of that anger, you're you're doomed to continue to to dwell on it and let it fester and corrode and and it preoccupies your life to the point where you're not able to be cleansed of it. It's it's it's a and it's a letting go thing. And I and I don't have a quick answer on how one lets go, but it would seem to me that would be the goal. How can I let this go so that it's not pulling me down? It's it's like an undertow that prevents you from really living up to your potential because all your energy is going toward this thing that you can't change anymore.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And you ruminate on it, right? You don't actually accept it or feel the emotion, just feeling it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I think, yeah, I think there's I think there's something to that about getting it out there, but I think that you can get it out there over and over and over again, and pretty soon, you know, you're kind of in the zone of being angry all the time. I'm not sure that's the ultimate solution. Yeah. I'm I'm thinking that forgiveness is probably the key. And I and it doesn't mean waiting for someone to tell you I'm sorry. I mean, that that would certainly, I think, accelerate the healing process. But at some point, I think you need to make the choice that you're not gonna dwell on this anymore. What whoever did you know something bad to you, they did it, it was terrible, but you gotta let it go and move on and move forward because otherwise you're just stuck. You're just gonna be stuck.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%. I think it's uh like you said, get it out. Forgiveness, right? Forgive it. And then look for the benefit on the other side of it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And and let me let me go back to forgiveness, because uh, you know, I agree I appreciate this opportunity to think through these things, because forgiveness, you know, may not be the right word to use because I I can already hear somebody saying I will never be able to forgive that behavior. Yeah. Understood, understood, because you know, if someone did something really bad to you, that it really is unforgivable. But I think though, that forgiving, and I'd have to kind of study this, forgive forgiveness doesn't mean absolution. It doesn't mean, oh, everything's fine, you know, everything's cool, you're forgiven, you're okay. No, I don't know if that's necessarily what I'm saying. It just means I'm choosing to no longer let your behavior define who I am. I need to get beyond this, and by getting on with it, I have to let it go. And I'm I'm putting you out of my life now.
SPEAKER_01: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, having control of my day-to-day. Because like you said, you can be angry for years for something that happened to you from years ago and and allowing that to still have control of you.
SPEAKER_00:Yep. You said it so well. Obviously, you've wrestled with this, or at least that's something that this podcast deals with.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And and I had a I had a a guest on talking about forgiveness, and she is a forgiveness coach, actually, helping folks forgive people. And it's forgiveness on various different levels, right? You have some people that you really need to forgive, that some pain you are really holding, and and then you have kind of these lower things that you need to forgive people, and so it's a practice, actually. And she mentions that it's a practice to forgive, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Letting it go for you. Right.
SPEAKER_00:And I mean, and that, and you know, you can do that in your daily life as well. I mean, you know, you and your wife 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 about it? I mean, it's it's a choice. You know, some things don't rise to the level of, you know, nuclear war.
SPEAKER_01:No, you you you put it right on the head. And I'm just and I I'm just thinking here because writing, especially back in ancient times, writing for them was everything, right? To the point where we still read a lot of those ancient teaching teachings today, and they still hold true.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and you know, I think there would I Jesus Christ Superstar is a great, you know, rock opera, and it was it's been around for a long time. And there's a song in there where the lyric is basically, I think it's Judas asking Jesus, you know, why did you come in a time when there was no mass communication? And I think that the I've thought about that a lot, and I think the answer is that the way they communicated was in writing. And writing is cool because the words stay the same, but the person, you can read the same words over and over again at different times, and you take something different away from it. The the sentiment is the same, the words are the same, but you're different, and you see thing, you see something different in that written word. So it's that, it's the the steadiness and the stability and the and the the impermanence of the words, but we are evolving and changing.
SPEAKER_01:You go through so many different things in life, different situations, experiences, your current times are different. It's so important to to kind of go back to those things, right? Yeah, I think so. You know, and and it's a totally different meaning. Almost to the point where it's some things that I've read and I'm like, I I didn't fully I thought I understood that, but I did not fully grasp that.
SPEAKER_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 through grief counseling, but there was somebody in my life who said, move toward the pain. It was good advice, and I had no idea what it meant. It took me until my son died to kind of get the concept is that 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 really processing it and taking it seriously and trying to learn from the experience.
SPEAKER_01:And I think especially men, we we look for everything that avoids pain. And even to the point where it's people out there who are avoiding they're avoiding pain that they don't even know that they're numbing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, I mean your podcast, playing injured. I mean, if you're injured, you you're you got pain.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. So you gotta go towards it, you know. And it's tough. I mean, it's not easy. It's it's one of the toughest things to do.
SPEAKER_00: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:Yeah, yeah. And so you mentioned how you've you've also used kind of the pain that you've gone through and expressed it through your creativity of writing fiction novels, right? Right, yep. To write stories about it. And uh, you know, it it's it's crazy because I've had thoughts about, you know, certain situations, painful situations that I've been through. I'm like, man, I would love to to to give this to Netflix to make that an episode about this. But you've turned books into that. How has that helped you to to to to express kind of the things you've gone through into creative endeavors?
SPEAKER_00:That's a really good question. And and the interesting answer is that I didn't set out to heal by writing stories. I Set out because basically CNN made me an editor and I'd been a reporter and I needed a creative outlet. Editing was tedious. It was fault finding, but it paid well. So I started to write fiction. And what I ended up stumbling onto was write what you know. It's the, you know, rule number one for writers. And what I knew was grief and loss. And so my first chapter of my first novel is My Sister's Suicide. I was on the scene that day. And so I just wrote it. Not to heal, but to access something that was powerful. And it wasn't until I looked back over the six novels that I realized, holy cow, that's what's going on here. And so it was the act of writing, and and basically I'm a slow learner. So it was just realizing after so long that I'm going, whoa, this is what I'm doing, and it's really helping.
SPEAKER_01: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 hit record, you talked about how you've written from a female perspective.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Some of these novels, right? And I think a lot of the men would love to learn. First of all, I would love to learn that how you even got to that place of writing from a female perspective.
SPEAKER_00:Fair enough. I was, I was, uh when I first started writing fiction, someone suggested that I should write in a way that stretches who I am. Never been a woman, at least not in this life. In fact, there was a woman at a writer's, I was giving a write a talk at a uh bookstore, and a woman in the back raised her hand and said, What do you wear when you write? You know, as if I, you know, I have my you know, leotards on and my high heels. And it's not, I'm a straight guy, 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 same emotions. It's just that in my life, the women are more willing to share their emotions and they're more articulate about the emotions they share. And so I was at CNN for 25 years. That's 25 years worth of young women in their early to mid-20s who would tell me their stories about their boyfriends and their careers and their families. And I learned what it's like to be a woman. There was one anchor I worked with, gorgeous. And I remember asking her, what's it like for guys to come on to you all the time? And she said, and this really was an eye-opener, she said, I can tell in the first 20 seconds if I'm safe. I never have to worry about being safe in a conversation. And that's when I realized that one thing it means to be a woman is that you have to play defense. 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 that helped 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 of the novel and tell me if I'm getting it right or wrong.
SPEAKER_01:So you got a real, a real good opportunity to really learn.
SPEAKER_00:Because I listened. Guys don't listen to women. You know, they hear, they hear the, you know, you need to take out the trap or whatever it is. You know, they feel like they're being scolded and they tune them out. They're they're saying something and you need to listen. It goes back to what we're talking about in being self-aware. Women can help a guy be self-aware. You know, granted, there's a lot of, I don't know, a lot of emotional turmoil that can be going on in one of those conversations, but you need to take a step back and maybe talk to somebody who's a professional, go to your journal, whatever it is, to kind of figure out what is it that this person is saying? Is it valid or not? You know, maybe it is, maybe not all entirely. Maybe there's some misunderstandings going on. But again, you know, in a may in a male-female relationship, that can be highly charged, and we need to get a handle on it and try to find ways to work it through and listen to who's telling us we need to change.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You may need to listen. Yeah. For sure. What other what other things do men need to do that they don't do? What other mistakes? From your, I mean, from you being able to do all this kind of research and get that perspective, which is Oh man, I learned I learned a lot.
SPEAKER_00:I've learned a lot from my conversations with with women. My wife and I have been married 47 years. We're still together, even though our son died. And that can kill a marriage. But, you know, for some reason we were able to get through that, primarily because we didn't compare our grief to the other person. We got help separately. But as far as relationships are concerned, I think that from what I understand from the women I've talked to, guys tend, and this is this is especially true from really attractive women. Guys think that they're paying them a compliment by going, oh, you're so beautiful. They hear that all the time. That's boring. What they really want is to play, to banter, you know, to not be put up on a pedestal, but to be, you know, treated as if they're a, you know, that there's there's uh that they're a real person, that they can be seen. And so, you know, listening to what they have to say instead of trying to impress them with your bank account or your high-powered career. The other thing that goes wrong is that, you know, guys tend to get needy. You know, once once it once there's something going on here, you know, all of a sudden the confident person that the woman was attracted to goes out the window, and all of a sudden, you know, they they feel they, you know, need, you know, constant affirmation or whatever. And so, you know, guys can be their worst enemy in a relationship.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Is this making any sense?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%. Yeah, a lot of it. A lot of sense of needingness. And that's where I think it comes back down to why I feel like it's so important for men to be self-aware.
SPEAKER_00:Self-aware. Let me say one other quick thing. There was another woman I worked with at CNN, also gorgeous, and she was going through a divorce. And at one point she said wistfully, 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 ever asked her that before. And so she thought a minute and she said, and and she didn't mean to sound conceited or arrogant, she said, they just they always they're the ones who have the confidence to approach me. And I think that she was on to something because the bad boys have the confidence. The problem is the bad boys are bad, they get mean and controlling, and and the nice guys keep losing. Here's my suggestion. If you're a nice guy, it's okay to be nice because that's a great quality, being kind, but what's attractive is confidence. And confidence doesn't mean you have to be mean.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Confident, courageous and boundaries, especially as a nice person. You gotta have some value.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, oh man. And boundaries go both ways.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%. And and thinking about self-awareness, though, you talked about neediness, for instance. Being able to to write and journal about, okay, why is it that I need this person?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, oh yeah. Oh man. Oh man. That is probably, if you were to look at my journals, and I'm not gonna show them to you, thank you 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 learn in the process, but it's like it was a recurring theme. It's like, oh, everything's got no, it's not. Yeah, here it is again. What am I what have I learned from the last time?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It's like you need something outside of yourself, right? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's like uh I need something, I need that new promotion, I need that car, I need that, that, that, that, that high-rise apartment, I need that that new purse or that new, you know, new new clothes, new everything to make me feel oh man.
SPEAKER_00:Sad. There was there was an interview I did, a guy asked me, how do how do how do I define success? Which I think is a fabulous question. And I'm not sure my answer was so fabulous, but my answer is I think I defined success by being able to do what you're good at and what you love. And when you do those two things, the success is its own reward because you're in the zone.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, how do I say?
SPEAKER_00:Comes from within.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it comes from within. And I, you know, uh I I feel like I'm on that journey right now. Still young, right? I'm 29.
SPEAKER_00:God, I used to be 29.
SPEAKER_01:And uh just yeah, I think a lot of men are probably on this journey of uh looking to feel whole within.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know.
SPEAKER_00: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, people say, well, you know, I'm I won't be whole until I find that, you know, person who completes me. And I think I and I understand that, and I and I think it's a valid feeling, and I know people feel that way. But what I think works better is when you come to a person who is 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 to complete me because that depends then on the other person. That person goes away and you freak out.
SPEAKER_01:And like we said, right? You can't control another person. There you go. A lot of guys, a lot of bad boys try that. Yeah, you can't control her. And even as a nice guy or a nice person or a good person, you'd have no idea the other person's background, histories, trauma, whatever the case may be, right? That's right, that's right. Um, which is why your self-awareness and your boundaries and you being complete is so important, right?
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, yes. You've done a lot of work already, man. I wish I wish I were talking like this when I was 29.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know, that's what happens when you actually go through you go through things and learn it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You go through things and you know, once you start to go through a lot, you and and I think also to just being self-aware of after learning something, right? I don't know if a lot of people when they feel some type of pain or they go through a struggle or they feel like they've made a mistake, if they go back and really take a look at it, which is why I think writing and and and having practices like this is so important. Talking to people, like we mentioned.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:So they can see your blind spots that you don't see.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah. Oh man, blind spots, that's huge.
SPEAKER_01: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 attention to? So um, and it's still it's still a journey for me. So I I mean I would love to hear from you. You you talked about for decades you had, you know, needs. Yeah. Like you needed, right? Or things outside of you that would make you feel complete, right? Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:I guess what have you learned from decades of of going through that?
SPEAKER_00:I think probably the biggest thing I've learned is to not give up, A, learning from my mistakes, and B, not being afraid to try again. And what I've discovered is that trying again after having evaluated things, I've I've come up with a new approach, or I've been more aware of, well, don't go there because that didn't work, and uh, and and learning from the mistakes that I've made. So that I'm at a point now where, you know, I think I feel much more complete and much more satisfied, much more self-aware, much more a whole and complete person, responsible for my own happiness. And joy, even, and even joy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So we talk about control or not having 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 from within. How do you handle situations that don't go the way you wanted it to go? And I and Well, I swear. And then another part to this, right? Not handling things that didn't go the way you wanted to go, but or yeah, that didn't go the way you wanted it to go, but also it ended up being it ended up working out perfectly in the long run, right? So things that didn't go the way you wanted it to go, how you handled it, and then looking back on it, you're probably glad that it didn't go that way because it went this way, that that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: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 keeps manifesting itself all through my life in terms of the mistakes and the learning and so on goes back to taking a breath, you know, getting back to the moment. You know, it's it as I said, you know, the emotions are they're morally neutral. They're the they're just there. And it's okay to feel them and it's okay to be aware of what they are, but then it's a matter of 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 temporary peace that enables you to be able to look more objectively at what's going on and and then kind of uh uh plotting your way forward. I don't think it's any more complicated than that. Because if you're in the moment and you're and you're taking a breath and you're allowing yourself to get calm and to look at things objectively, I think those are the that those are the ingredients that you'll then to be able to utilize as you formulate the next steps. Nothing, you know, it's it's I don't think it's any more complicated than that, but that's enough.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%. More than enough.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:More than enough. To take a breath, to take some space.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, you know, guys hear this all the time. I need some space. And they're taking care of themselves. You know, the woman is saying, I need some space. And, you know, I don't know how many guys, I I've been out of the picture for a while, but I'm not sure how many guys go, I need some space. And it's like, no, you need to be with me. Why aren't you texting me? You know, those kind of things. I need some space. It's probably got a something going on there that's uh making sense.
SPEAKER_01:Give me some space. And and I mean, as men, we need space to take our time with with a lot of different things, right? To think about I I loved how you said to think about like your yesterday.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Understand why did I do certain things, right? Well, I didn't feel like going to 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 the night before and you know, maybe I had too many to drink. Okay, well, how could we fix that? I it's a lot of things that we need to do to take some space and take some time.
SPEAKER_00: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 call it a night?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because I know what I felt like the next morning.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. That happens all the time. All the time, right? Where you you've made a choice, right? And then that that situation comes up again. You got the opportunity to to redeem yourself. And then a lot of times they're like, Well, uh, I can just do it, and on the back half, I can figure something out on the back half instead of not making the decision, you know? And so um no, it's it's so much to learn. And and I think that, I think more than anything, I think what I'm learning is just self-awareness and and how important that is. And I don't know, John, if I thought I would come walk away from this this conversation with you thinking that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, is that a I think that's a good thing, right?
SPEAKER_01:It's a great thing, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:It's a great thing. John, where can people find you? Where can they get in touch with you and kind of learn more about your store?
SPEAKER_00: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 a tricky Greek name. J-O-H-N D as in dog e, d as in dog A, K-I-S as in Sam, johndedakis.com tells about my books, my upcoming events, my uh uh writing classes, my speaking, all that kind of stuff. Plus, there are plenty of ways to get through to me by email on several of those pages.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm looking at the website right now. Another beautiful shirt. You you probably got a lot of shirts. Yeah, another great one here. Great photo. And I'll make sure I put this in the footnotes.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Folks would be able to see this. This is some some great stuff. Thank you that I'm taking a look at. So, John, we appreciate you sharing. I mean, just a ton of nuggets and just your your history, your experience, and I think it's a lot of gold in this episode.
SPEAKER_00:So man, well, you brought it out. Thanks, Josh. This was fun.
SPEAKER_01:Free audio post production by alphonic.com.
