From Grief To Purpose + Resiliency with John DeDakis (part 1)

What if your hardest seasons became the fuel for your most meaningful work? In this episode, journalist and novelist John DeDakis shares how loss, discipline, and truth shaped his purpose.

John’s path started at American Forces Network in Germany, where he interviewed Alfred Hitchcock. From there, he moved through local news and on to CNN, where the nonstop pace demanded a creative outlet. Fiction became that outlet. His first novel took ten years, fourteen rewrites, and thirty-nine agent queries. The lesson: cut weak subplots, find your genre through subtraction, and treat reflection as part of the writing process.

He speaks plainly about modern media. The press and the White House often work in tension. Speed often beats truth. Integrity in reporting is harder to maintain when accuracy loses to attention. Those same tensions shape his thriller Fake, where a reporter’s reputation is destroyed by a lie everyone can see.

The heart of the conversation is writing through pain. John shares how early trauma and the loss of his son became the foundation for honest and healing work. He explains how writing can process grief, rebuild focus, and restore meaning. Leaders and teams face the same truth—unresolved pain drains morale and performance.

If you want to reconnect with your purpose, finish your story, or bring meaning to hard experiences, this episode gives you practical direction. Follow the show, share it with someone who needs perspective, and leave a review to help others find it.

About John DeDakis

@dedakisjohn 

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Chapters

• 0:06 Setting The Theme: Reigniting Passion
• 1:41 Book Launch And Listener Feedback
• 3:26 Marketing Ideas And Community Support
• 3:46 Meet Guest: John DeDakis
• 4:34 Draft, Vietnam, And Finding Journalism
• 7:44 AFN Germany And Purpose
• 9:13 From Local News To CNN
• 10:58 Ten Years To An Agent
• 12:21 Curiosity And Listening As Craft
• 13:35 Genre Discovery And Revisions
• 17:18 Process, Procrastination, And Morning Writing
• 18:20 Inside The Newsroom And Ethics
• 20:04 Speed, Accuracy, And Siloed Media
• 21:17 Personal Tragedy And Cathartic Writing
• 23:06 Grief To Advocacy And Speaking
• 27:24 Closing And Listener Actions

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, Natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.

SPEAKER_02: 0:41

Welcome to another episode of Reignite Resilience. I am your co-host, Natalie Davis, and I'm so excited to be back with all of you today. And joining me is your co-host, Pam Cass. Hello, Pam. How are you?

SPEAKER_01: 0:53

I am fantastic. Not only is it a Friday, but it's a Friday getting to not only record a podcast, but also have an incredible guest. And yes, it's been it's been a great week. I'll share with the listeners. So I had one of my neighbors click a picture of our book that she ordered on Amazon. And she read it because it's a it's a fairly quick, easy read. Um, she read it and told me that she's ordered a whole bunch of copies to give as gifts to people. I love this. Yes, basically cool.

SPEAKER_02: 1:27

It is. Oh my gosh. We've got we're gonna continue to give updates as that progresses. And if you all have not had a chance to go over to Amazon and pick up the book, click the link in the show notes. We will make sure that you can get directly over there, get your copy, or if you want it as an ebook, download it to your e-reading device. I don't do ebooks, so I'm not sure what those device Kindles I think are still a thing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:49

I I did Kindles until the time I was lying in bed reading it and I was holding it above my head and I must have fallen asleep and I dropped the Kindle on my face. That hurts a lot more than dropping a book on your face. So I no longer use a Kindle.

SPEAKER_02: 2:04

That's out. Done. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 2:05

Know your limits. Know my limits. So um, yes, this is this is what happens.

SPEAKER_02: 2:11

Well, it is an exciting time for reading that resilience. We're excited to have this first book launch in the Red Journal series. Um, so go and pick it up, definitely. And I'm glad that you're getting these messages as well. I've had a couple of people reach out to me that have wrapped up the book over the past weekend and lots of positive feedback, a lot of the reflection in the book. So not giving too much away, those reflective questions uh for individual to just kind of ponder. I mean, you don't have to have dyslexia to relate to the story and where you are in your own experiences of not being seen or not feeling like you belong and things of that nature. So, so check it out. I'm excited. I'm glad that people are enjoying it. This is fun.

SPEAKER_01: 2:53

I did, I had someone ask me if I would take the journal prompts and put them like on a poster to have so that they could put it in their office or whatever. And I was like, well, it's gonna be in the red journal that we create. So you'll be able to take the journal and and answer those questions.

SPEAKER_02: 3:09

And answer the questions, exactly. And I was also gonna say, hey, Rebecca, we're probably gonna call you. Rebecca takes care of all of our fabulous marketing uh for a machine behind the scenes. So that is definitely something that we could do as an infographic as well. I think that would be a great idea. I love it. I love it. Okay, Pam, tell our listeners who's joining us today because I am excited to hear, I mean, talk about like captivating story. Um we are in for that for sure today.

SPEAKER_01: 3:37

Absolutely. So today we have joining us now. He is a journalist, novelist, and writing coach, John DeDacis. John is a former editor on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. During John's 45-year career in journalism, he was a White House correspondent during Ronald Reagan's presidency. John is the author of six award-winning mystery suspense thriller novels. Plus, he's a manuscript editor and motivational speaker. John's specialty is helping wannabe writers become published authors. Welcome, John. We are so excited to have you with us today and for you to share your story with our listeners.

SPEAKER_03: 4:24

Hi, Pam and Natalie. Thanks very much for this opportunity. It's good to be here.

SPEAKER_01: 4:29

Absolutely. I guess start with telling us how what got you into journalism.

SPEAKER_03: 4:34

Journalism got it was not the first choice. The first choice was to go into law. My dad was a lawyer, and the two of us were going to go into practice together, but then the Vietnam War came along. I was a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. They had a draft. If you had a number below 150, you were going to get drafted. Mine was 14. I had a student deferment, so I was cool for a while. That was a tumultuous time. You think this is a divided time? It was even more polarized back then. And after Kent State, Kent State was when the National Guard fired on students and killed four. And every college campus in the country exploded. And at this point, I was, you know, I was raised by Nixon Republicans. You know, war is good business. Invest your son. So that was my background. But when I was in the dorms and the bull sessions, I'd argue the right wing line of my Nixon Republican parents. And when I was at home, I'd argue the left wing line I was hearing at school. And when I was alone, I was confused. And so I volunteered at a campus radio station, covered a riot after Kent State, got tear gassed, and there my parents heard their little boy getting tear gassed on the radio, and they encouraged me to switch schools because I'd had it with the campus chaos. And so I did transfer, but at this point, my grade point average was 1.94. I was that close to getting kicked out of school. And when I made the transfer, it so happened that Playboy Magazine had voted UW Madison the number one party school in the country. And I had seen it as my main mission in life to be the number one party. I didn't succeed. So I'm 14 in the draft, getting ready to get sent over to Vietnam. Long story short, I enlisted to avoid the draft because I wasn't really sure if that I was a conscientious objector. So plot twist, and we all have them, whether it's you know in our personal lives or in fiction. And in my case, I had I got orders to Vietnam, but at the last minute, they were changed to Germany. And I spent two and a half years at the headquarters of the American Forces Radio and Television Network in Frankfurt, Germany, doing interviews for a special events radio unit. And the first interview I did was with a guy named Alfred Hitchcock. You may have heard of him. And when you put those two things together, you've got purpose and propulsion going forward in your life. So I got out of the army, went to journalism school at the University of Wisconsin, got a grade point average of 3.5. I'm not brilliant, but you know, that was what launched my journalism career.

SPEAKER_01: 7:42

Okay. Wow. Okay. Alfred Hitchcock, one of my ultimate favorite. His movies are like favorite. So still, still. Still. And so you were doing the radio at the college. And so that allowed the so did they pick you to go to Germany to do the radio show? Or was it?

SPEAKER_03: 8:02

No, that was the Army. The Army had something called military journalism. And so I got trained in the Army as a journalist. That was my first, you know, formal training in the business. And then, you know, the American Forces Network is the voice of home. It is, you know, a radio and it is radio and television networks all over the world, wherever U.S. troops are stationed. It's the voice of home.

SPEAKER_02: 8:26

And the value of that I can, especially during that time, like those interviews and the topics that you're covering to bring those to those that are serving, like to bring that uh segment to those that are serving, I'm sure was so it was huge, right? I mean, I'm sure during that time, it's what you look forward to, right? Like what's coming on? What's next?

SPEAKER_03: 8:45

Absolutely. Because, you know, you're, you know, these are mostly young kids away from home for the first time overseas. You know, granted Germany wasn't a war zone, but you know, they had AFN in uh Vietnam as well. I mean, you know, Robin Williams, good morning, Vietnam. That's the American Forces Network.

SPEAKER_02: 9:03

That's amazing. So unlocking that passion, something that you're excited about and realizing that purpose that you have at that point. What happens when you come home? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_03: 9:13

I actually had some purpose. And so I got my degree in journalism, got into uh the business. My first television job was at the NBC affiliate in uh Madison, and I was there for 10 years. And nowadays, local news, you're there two years and then you move on. And so I was at a station where they really were committed to the community. I covered the White House when Reagan was president for the last three years of his presidency. I went to CNN in Atlanta in 1988 as a writer. Probably the next plot twist was when they made me an editor. It paid well, but it was tedious. And so I needed a creative outlet, and that's when I started writing fiction because I just needed to scratch that creative itch. But it took 10 years for me to get the agent that I've got. My novel went the first novel went through 14 major revisions, and my agent was the 39th agent that I queried. I tell my writing students, if you take good notes, I'll save you nine years in the process.

SPEAKER_02: 10:14

For our listeners that that don't know, before the show started, I can see that that you don't only just teach that, John. You live that. Uh we were just having some conversation and you were diligently taking notes as we were chatting.

SPEAKER_03: 10:27

Taking notes and pumping you for information. I I am I am voraciously curious. And if you and if I get a if if I get even a little opportunity, I'll probably turn the tables on you guys.

SPEAKER_02: 10:40

I love that. I I love that. Well, I have to say, before we started, you said something that I am going to carry with me forever because curiosity is something that I think is so important. Um, and I speak a lot about curiosity, and I often reference to it as like curiosity of a five-year-old, you know, that level of we really want to be able to do that. Innocent curiosity.

SPEAKER_03: 10:59

I mean, uh, you know, kids kids have follow-up questions nailed. It's time for bed. Why? Because I said so. Why? And so on.

SPEAKER_02: 11:09

Yes, absolutely. And but and before you started, you said follow the curiosity. And I thought that is a motto for life. Like that is useful.

SPEAKER_03: 11:18

Oh, baby, that's it. Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 11:20

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03: 11:22

Gosh, if we could all do that.

SPEAKER_02: 11:24

I think we can all we can all benefit from that, right? Like listen, please. Like, follow the curiosity forever.

SPEAKER_03: 11:30

And then and then listen, because when you're listening, you're learning. Absolutely. We could use a lot of that right now in the world. Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely. I mean, we're at a point where we can't agree on the facts, but we can find common human ground. You know, how's the job? How's the family? You know, how's your health? You know, great day, isn't it? You know, those kind of things. We can meet on a common level and try to break that circuit of having to win the argument. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 12:02

I love that. Oh my gosh. John, you mentioned, was it 39 revisions that you said?

SPEAKER_03: 12:07

Is that uh yeah, I know it went through 14 major revisions, but 38 queries that got rejected until my agent came along and we're still together after 20 years and six books. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 12:20

That's fabulous. How did you stay motivated during that process? Because here you are using writing as a creative outlet to only go through rounds and rounds of revisions. How did you keep yourself inspired to continue with the work?

SPEAKER_03: 12:35

You know, I don't think I had to really, you know, grit my teeth and try. The desire was just there. I didn't have to manufacture the desire. I mean, part of it, the reason that it took so long is that I had a day job and a wife and three kids and a dog and a mortgage, and you know, I've got procrastination nailed. Uh, but at the same time, there was a moment where my wife took me aside and said, Um, your book is your mistress. And that got my attention because if there's the work-life balance that I was a little bit lopsided. So it's the suspense novels. So what made you go that direction? You know, that's a good question because I had no, I just wanted to get published. I just wanted to write a book. I didn't know there were such things as genres, different story types. And I don't think I realized what my genre was until late in the process, maybe the eighth draft. I took the uh there was a book club that met in our neighborhood in Atlanta, and uh 25 I write as a woman. That's that's a whole nother there's a 12-step program for that, I'm sure. But there were 20, 25 women let me sit in on their critique. And as I and that was daunting for a number of reasons, but as I listened to them take it apart, I realized that I had three subplots that I didn't need. And so in the rewrite, I was able to take those particular story strands out, and the rewrite, the book went from a hundred and fifty thousand-word mishmash, because that's sort of what the genre was, to a 75,000-word mystery suspense novel. Who knew? That's how I found my genre.

SPEAKER_02: 14:18

And were there other books built into some of the work that you extracted, part of the mishmash that was in there?

SPEAKER_03: 15:20

Uh I think so. I mean, it's got it's been a long time, but uh, you know, none of that really dies, you know, because uh, I mean, I had no intention of writing any more books. I just wanted to get that first one published. But then the more you write, the more you think, oh, well, this could happen and that could happen. And and a lot of times I'm finding that first-time writers feel that they've got to cram everything into that book. You don't, you know, tell that one story and then go on because agents love it when you've got you know more ideas and more books in the pipeline. Oh my gosh, what is your process for writing? Procrastination. But you know what? Procrastination isn't really wasted time because if you're thinking about your book, that's writing. Rumination is also writing. And you know, there does come a time when you've got to you know put pen to paper or finger to keyboard. But uh the process for me, and it and it's evolved. But what works for me now is I have to write in the morning. If I wait until you know too late, I don't sleep well because the book is still churning around in me. So I'm up, of course, I did overnights at CNN for you know 25 years, and so that's that my body was bludgeoned into submission. So I only need five hours of sleep. Oh, yes. So today I was up at 2:30 in the morning, and that's fine. I mean, my wife goes, Are you sure you want to do that? Yeah, because why should I toss and turn if I've got you know something to do?

SPEAKER_02: 16:49

Yeah, the wheels are still spinning.

SPEAKER_03: 16:51

I think sleep is overrated.

SPEAKER_02: 16:55

I beg to differ. I really value sleep.

SPEAKER_03: 16:58

Fine. Everybody's different.

SPEAKER_02: 17:00

I'm like you, John. I've never been programmed to to live on five hours of sleep. So I I I get that piece of it. And and again, it was, you know, just a season of life that you were in and getting that program in your body said, we can we can function like this. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_03: 17:14

There you go. There you go. Listen to your body, listen to your body.

SPEAKER_02: 17:17

Yeah, absolutely. Well, tell us a little bit about your time with CNN and kind of your professional journey, because while you're making the advancements on the professional side, you could you kind of alluded to this. You also have life that's happening, like your personal life in addition to your career. So talk to us a little bit about your professional world and then we'll come back and kind of bring everything back in.

SPEAKER_03: 17:38

Okay. Well, the professional, the journalism part actually was in two parts. The first part was reporting. First as a radio reporter, then as a television reporter. I don't talk about this a whole lot, but I did a stint for five years at the Christian Broadcasting Network. My boss was Pat Robertson, and this was at a time when he was running for president. Here I am, White House correspondent, and my boss is running for president. Not, it was a very delicate time because you know my job was to play it straight, not to be in the Robertson for president campaign. And of course, a lot of the people I was around felt that that was my job. No, it wasn't. One of the takeaways, I did a piece, uh, we followed uh press secretary uh Larry Speaks around for a day, and the piece was on the White House press corps versus the president. And the takeaway for me was that by definition, it's an adversarial relationship, no matter who's in office, what party, because it was the press secretary's job to make Reagan and his policies look perfect. It's our job as reporters to find out what's really going on, and so that sets up friction and confrontation. And no president, no matter what party they're in, likes their press coverage all that much. And I discovered that uh, you know, it's a firing offense at any reputable news organization to make things up, and so that lesson is taken into all my novels. All my novels have a journalism backdrop, and as it's turned out, that was fortuitous because journalism has become incredibly controversial. Ever hear of fake news? My fifth novel, fake. I wrote that when Trump was elected because I was troubled by his comment that journalists are enemies of the American people. They're not. And so what I did is I put my protagonist, a White House correspondent, in a situation where we, the reader, know that what's being told about her, that's national news, is a lie. It's not true. But there are consequences when lies are told, and that's what I tried to catch in uh in fake. So that was, you know, that was the first part of the professional career, and then the second part was, in a sense, behind the scenes at CNN in Atlanta and uh 17 years in Atlanta, uh seven years in uh in DC. In television news, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes, and or it's amazing that anything gets on the air because of all the hoops you have to jump through. So, you know, that was a great experience as well. I mean, I was there, you know, the night of the Gulf War when CNN became a household name. And working for Wolf. Wolf is a journalist's journalist. You know, he doesn't vote, as far as I know. He cares more about accuracy. When we were together, I still don't know what his politics are. You know, but it's just he he's he's plays it straight. And we that's the way we approached it.

SPEAKER_02: 20:39

Great insight from behind the scenes, right? Because we uh the public, we only get the finished product, right? It's just it we get what we get, and and if there's a correction or an edit, uh then we we see that as well. The work that goes in it behind the scenes is uh a tremendous lift as well.

SPEAKER_03: 20:53

Yes. Yeah. And the problem with journalism now is that we're siloed. You know, people gravitate toward whatever reinforces their opinion. There was a woman I met at a conference and she shook her finger at me and she said, You're nothing but fake news. And I said, Well, where do you get your news? She said, Bright part. And uh my jaw dropped because they make it up. And uh, and I before I could say anything, she said, Well, I have to have my opinion reinforced.

SPEAKER_02: 21:22

So she just confirmed me.

SPEAKER_03: 21:24

I said, actually, you have to have it informed, you know, get the facts and then go where you, you know, where you want.

SPEAKER_02: 21:31

You should go ahead and send your resume over there, ma'am. I feel like you would be a great asset. That's right. Like you can, you can you too can contribute. Well, and John, the other thing is that it it's so fast, right? The pace of reporting uh in in today's day and age, it's not necessarily the accuracy that you talk about, right? Like I think I, you know, when you look at journalism from a historical context to now it's like a race against the not even the clock, it's the race against first. Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 21:59

Oh, yeah. I mean, every every second is a deadline. Yes. And, you know, because of the internet and and digital uh abilities, yeah, the what it what the the phrase is a lie can go around the world before the truth can get on its shoes. That's a good phrase. Wow, scary.

SPEAKER_02: 22:16

While you're building this fabulous and exciting professional, you're also exuding resiliency in your personal life going through life was I as I like to say, life was lifeing. Right? Like like a life is going to happen around us, regardless of if we want it to work.

SPEAKER_03: 22:34

Yep. Right.

SPEAKER_02: 22:35

Talk to us a little bit about your journey because you've you experienced some things that I I think would take a lot of people off course.

SPEAKER_03: 22:42

That's true. And I and it and it actually got poured into my writing as well. When I was nine years old, I witnessed a car train collision that killed three people. And you know, I was and one of the people who that was killed was a kid my age. And so, you know, you kind of face your mortality at a pretty young age. And then my sister took her life in 1980, carbon monoxide poisoning. I was on the scene that day. And so 15 years later, I started to write novels, and the first chapter brings together those two events, the car train collision and my sister's death. And uh, and the very first chapter is ripped from reality. I mean, I didn't have to make much up at all. And I discovered that it was cathartic. It was, you know, you write what you know, and I and I encourage my writing students to move toward the pain and mine it. We all have grief and loss, and it doesn't require you to have lost a loved one, but you can lose a pet, a job, a loved one, your health, your innocence, you know, any one of those things can produce profound feelings of of loss. And yet when you're going through it, you feel like no one understands. It's you know, you feel isolated. And yet, as a writer, being able to articulate it and actually put it into the lives of your characters does something. It it helps the other people understand uh because I think we read books to live life vicariously through the characters and get to know people we otherwise might not know. And it's also therapeutic. And I don't think I even realized that for a number of years because uh by the time my f third book came along, my uh youngest son went missing. Uh 22 years old, found dead in my car, a block and a half from our house in DC, dead of an accidental heroin overdose. And that time I went through grief counseling for like two and a half years. And when I emerged, I wrote my fourth novel, Pulit in the Chamber, which once again takes those the collateral damage surrounding the time when he was missing, and I poured it in as a subplot in my protagonist's life. Again, very therapeutic. And it's now 20 years later, and I look back and I see all that time I was working stuff out as I was writing.

SPEAKER_01: 25:05

Yeah, you were working it out through your writing. We had a guest a long time ago. She was a professor and she taught writing, and she did the same thing. She had lost a live-in boyfriend to suicide, and she used writing to for a heal like therapeutic. And it is really healing when you share those stories that are deeply personal. And I it comes across in the in the pages, and people can feel it.

SPEAKER_03: 25:32

Yep. It helps a lot to be able to do that and to find that other people are really helped. And so now I'm at a point where I'm I'm expanding and I'm taking, I'm I'm becoming a motivational speaker for corporations that have wellness programs, uh, veterans groups that uh are dealing with PTSD, hospice organizations to help people who are struggling with grief to use writing as a way to heal. And this is especially, I think, valuable in the corporate world because, you know, unresolved grief can cause low morale, absenteeism, high rates of turnover, and obviously low productivity. So, you know, I think I'm able at this point to provide some sort of hope, I guess you could say, and resilience.

SPEAKER_00: 26:22

Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas to fuel the flames of passion. Please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes, and of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.