ATLANTA -- A shiny, charmed wonderful life. That is how Daryn Kagan describes her years as a CNN anchor. "I traveled the world for them, whether it was going to war, the red carpet, traveling to Africa with Bono for two weeks. Someone had to do it." Kagan smiles. There were some seriously impressive perks to being one of the faces of CNN, broadcasting across the world each day from 9 a.m. until noon. "So if news was breaking,I was the face that you saw. Until the day they broke the news to her.
"They came to me and said they weren't going to renew my contract."
More than twenty years into a hugely successful career, it was over. Nine years later, in her cozy living, Kagan freely admits,"I loved my job. I'd still be sitting there if they hadn't kicked me out the door and I haven't missed it a single second."
How is that possible? Not to miss it? Because of what happened in the next chapter of her life, where she found the other things she had been missing and wanting.
Like her own website filled with good news."That became my company. That's what I do. I create content that's uplifting and positive."
Then came the husband and daughter. "He was a single dad who was raising his young daughter by himself because his first wife had passed away. We got married. I adopted her."
Then came another daughter. "The year before I met them I signed up to be a big sister in the Big Brother Big Sister program and now she's pretty much with us full time as well. So I went from glamorous TV single news woman, to mom and wife raising two teenage girls."
And don't forget the animal menagerie that rules this intown home. There is Pisa, the 3 legged cat, Darla, the almost 16 year old dog, and the ladies. The ladies are the chickens..with names like Barbie, and Nugget. "I started with 2 or 3 and they're kind of like potato chips, you can't have just one." Kagan stands in her chilly backyard, holding Nugget, stroking her like a well loved pet.
This is about as far from the glamorous anchor chair you can get, and it's the best place Kagan has ever been. Hope Possible, her second book, is about this journey of reinvention, the kind that can have a bumpy, painful start..
"That bad thing that happened to you that you think is bad might not be so bad. It might actually be the gift that you needed to move along."
As Kagan learned and is sharing, happy endings don't only happen in books."I hope they'll see that a next chapter is possible. The magic thing for me has been when I let go of the package, the packaging I thought it had to show up in, that's when it showed up even better than I could have imagined for myself."
To buy Hope Possible, click here.
To visit Kagan's positive news website, click here.
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