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Looks like it's time for me to get inspired and go dress shopping. Not just any dress, mind you. No the fancy, get all gussied up, put high heels on kind of dress.
I got word today that my first documentary Breaking The Curse has won a Gracie Allen Award.
The Gracies are handed out by the American Women in Radio and Television at a big gala in May in New York City. (I'm sounding like that salsa commercial, "Noooo York Citeh???!" It's kind of like a "who's who" for women in media. I know because I went a few times back in my CNN anchor days. And let me tell you, when it comes to getting dressed up, this is a varsity event.
But even more important than making hooray for me that the documentary won an award or looking for the dress, thinking about the experience of Breaking The Curse makes me smile because it reminds me how much and how many wonderful people have "just shown up" since I started down this path of telling inspiring stories.
Back in the days before I launched DarynKagan.com, my original vision was to edit the daily video webcasts myself. It certainly wasn't my #1 skill set from my TV news days, but I figured I could learn. And I imagine that I could have, but my #1 business advisor, my little sister, Kallan, had another idea. "That's not how you want to be spending your time," she explained to me. "You'll be up at 3 in the morning trying to edit video. You'll get frustrated and it won't be the quality of work visitors expect from you after all those years watching you on CNN."
She was right, I knew. But where was I going to find the person to edit the video for this site? Within 24 hours I received an email. "I don't know if you remember me," the sender wrote, "My name is Brian Kosisky. I was a videographer and editor at CNN for many years. I left last year to follow my dream of producing inspiring documentaries. I would love to talk about working with you."
Just like that, I had a video editor and a lead on my first documentary. Brian is really the engine behind Breaking the Curse. He had the vision and made it happen. It went so well that we are now work on our second documentary, SolartownUSA. That should hit the airwaves sometime later this year.
Meanwhile, Brian takes care of much of the production work I need to make DarynKagan.com run, like shooting all my on camera introductions and yes, editing the video for the stories. It couldn't have worked out better if I'd ordered him out of a catalog.
And to think, he just showed up. So did production assistant Heather Halter, my book agent, my book publisher. This list goes on and on.
One of my favorite inspirational writers, Wayne Dyer, said it would go like this. He writes in his book, entitled appropriately enough, Inspiration, when you lead your inspired life, everyone and everything you need will just show up.
I find that to be true almost everyday. It's such an interesting contrast to 20 years in the TV news business working so hard to try to will events to happen. That was so much more effort for far less return.
This isn't to say, that I don't have my frustrating moments or times when I wish things were going at a different pace. Of course, we all do. I think that's why they call us, "humans." The more I go down that path tends to be a recurring lesson in controlling things and people the way I would like them to go tends not to work so much.
So the motto around these parts is, "Go with the flow," and give gratitude for the amazing people and events that just show up on their own.
Time to go check that wonderful email box and see you showed up today! Maybe there is even someone who wants to give me a dress for the big Gracie night!
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