Episode Description
What drives someone to redefine their life after decades of marriage? How can you live through some of life’s biggest challenges – like the loss of a child, the loss of a job and the loss of a marriage, and not only survive but thrive afterwards?
In this podcast episode Dana Cox shares her transformative journey of personal growth and resilience after deciding to end her 33-year marriage. She openly shares how she strategically navigated the divorce process, not just to protect herself financially but also to preserve an amicable relationship with her ex-husband, which was crucial for their six children and three grandchildren.
With candid honesty, Dana recounts the physical, emotional, and mental transformation that followed her decision to prioritize her well-being, peace of mind, and happiness. Her transformation was founded in a powerful mindset shift that caused her to take full responsibility for her part in the ending of her marriage, and to focus on becoming the person she needed to be to create the life she wanted.
Shortly after her divorce, Dana lost her corporate job. But instead of letting that loss bring her down, she simply pivoted and created her own coaching business. Now she empowers other women to prioritize their personal values and follow their hearts too.
If you need an uplifting story of growth, resilience and hope in the face of adversity, this week’s podcast episode is for you.
Show Notes
About Dana
Dana L. Cox is an international speaker, author, and the powerhouse behind FIX Coaching & Consulting. With over two decades of leadership experience, she empowers ambitious women to achieve extraordinary success without sacrificing their personal lives. Her approach integrates career goals with life aspirations, creating harmony and resilience for her clients. Dana’s work also drives organizations to streamline operations and foster bold, transformative leadership.
Connect with Dana
You can connect with Dana on LinkedIn at Dana L Cox. To find out more about Dana and the services she offers visit her website at www.danalcox.com.
Coming Soon
- 2-day Deep Dive Intensive "Success Unchained: Ditch Burnout & Mom Guilt"
- Online course; Book: The F.I.X. - Focused & Intentional eXecution: 7 Steps for Climbing the Corporate Ladder Without Neglecting Your Health or Sacrificing Your Family and new online course launch.
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Dana
- Dana Cox is an international speaker, author, and founder of Fix Coaching and Consulting
- She has over 20 years of leadership experience and helps ambitious women achieve success without sacrificing personal life
- Dana went through a divorce after 33 years of marriage and has six children and three grandchildren, making it crucial to maintain an amicable relationship with her ex.
- Dana approached her divorce with clear goals:
- Wanted to remain friends with ex-husband
- Aimed to keep the process amicable for children's sake
- Had specific financial goals to protect her future
- And her total divorce cost was less than $4,000
- Dana used a strategic approach to divorce which included selling her condo, paying down debt and dividing assets before filing for divorce.
- During this time, she also experienced a personal transformation which included losing 60 pounds, overcoming stress and insomnia, transformed her mindset and accepted and took responsibility for her role in the marriage.
- She also changed careers after losing her job and instead of panicking, decided to travel for six weeks and then started her business Fix Coaching and Consulting.
- Philosophy & Lessons Include:
- Believes in "be, do, have" - become the person you need to be to have the life you want
- Emphasizes the importance of being prescriptive about relationship wants
- Draws from experience of losing her seventh child 24 years ago as perspective for handling life's challenges
- Advocates for women defining their own version of success rather than following society's expectations
- Embrace life's pivots and ask for help when needed
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Transcript
Dana Cox's Bold Leap: Life After a 33-Year Marriage
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
empowerment, transformation, mindset, intentional
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Dana Cox
Karen Covy Host
00:02
Hello and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision-making to try to figure out what keeps us stuck and, more importantly, how do we get unstuck. I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorce lawyer, mediator and arbitrator, turned coach, author and entrepreneur. With me today is Dana Cox, and Dana is an international speaker, author and the powerhouse behind Fix Coaching and Consulting. With over two decades of leadership experience, Dana empowers ambitious women to achieve extraordinary success without sacrificing their personal lives. Her approach integrates career goals with life aspirations, creating harmony and resilience for her clients. Dana's work also drives organizations to streamline operations and foster bold, transformative leadership. Dana, welcome to the show.
Dana Cox Guest
00:59
Thank you, Karen. I'm so glad to be here and spend this time with you.
Karen Covy Host
01:04
You know, besides all of the cool things that I just said that you've done, besides all that also, you and I know each other from your divorce. You've also been through a divorce and, if it's okay with you, I'd like to start there, because it's like we were talking before the show started. You are the poster child for how to do this. I mean, if you're going to get a divorce, you want to get through it in a way that is streamlined, that causes the least amount of pain and problems and expense as possible, and you did that. So, if you don't mind, start there. Let's talk about your experience of divorce.
Dana Cox Guest
01:49
Yeah. So first of all, thank you for being my coach and my guide through the process. I had went through my first divorce ever, after being married for 33 years. No one goes into marriage thinking, oh, I'm going to divorce, but when you do get to that aspect of the journey, I had no idea what to do or what not to do, or where the bodies were buried. And I heard from a friend that there was such a thing as a divorce coach and I'm like there are coaches for divorce. Oh my God.
02:24
But it was coming into this process with you that there were a few things that were really important to me, and so I think, having that North star, if you will, in mind coming in, what is the goal at the end of this? What do I want that to look like was really important. I wanted the process to be as amicable as possible. My ex-husband and I have six children and three grandchildren and we're attached for life, right, and so I never wanted my children to feel like they had to choose between mom or dad and I wanted us to still be able to remain friends at the end of this. But I also had some financial goals that I wanted to also achieve with this process and wanted to make sure I navigated that terrain in a smart way. I wanted to be fair yet amicable, but also make sure that I was making the right decisions for myself at the end of the day, so that two, three, five years down the road something wouldn't come back to bite me.
Karen Covy Host
03:29
Yeah, and I just, you know, for anybody who's watching the video, or for those who are listening and can't see the video, I've just got to give them a visual of you, because you are beaming, you are bright and beautiful and smiling. And for those of you who didn't know, you back when considerably lighter than you used to be when you started this so tell people where you were at in the beginning, because the woman I see now is amazing, and you were amazing back then too. But you were stressed, you were overweight, you were smashed, you didn't know where to go, like you're a whole different human. So how did you feel back then?
Dana Cox Guest
04:13
You were right. I was so stressed and I knew I was stressed because I had gone on this long weight loss journey to get to a place of health and fitness and I had bounced back to the other side of that thing. And so I knew something was drastically wrong in my life and really needed to do some introspective work to understand what that thing was, which kind of led me to the one relationship I hadn't analyzed to make a decision on, which was my marriage, and made that decision to kind of go down the path of divorce, and since then I've lost 60 pounds. I'm literally the healthiest I've been. Even you know this is lighter than I was on the other side of my journey. So I've achieved that goal and I definitely feel it.
05:06
I wasn't sleeping well at all, so lots of insomnia and things of that nature. So I think just being able to have peace of mind had really been transformative for my life, and peace is a very important barometer. And so my home is peaceful. My life is peaceful, not to say that it is without disruption. That is not what I'm saying, because life is going to do what it does. Life's right, but it's all a matter of how I choose to look at those situations and handle those situations. That is really been a big piece of my transformation on the other side of divorce.
Karen Covy Host
05:53
Yeah, and that I love that you just use that word transformation, because that's what it's all about. And what I'd love for you to talk about is the headspace how you transformed your mindset, your mind, the inside part, because fundamentally, that's what leads the way. People think it's the other way around. When I lose weight, I'll feel better, I'll you know, when I'm, you know, happier, I'll be able to do this or that or the other thing, but it's really, it's the inside job. It's the other way around, and you've mastered that, so tell me about that.
Dana Cox Guest
06:31
It's really, I like to say it's be do have right. Who do I need to be in order to do the things that I need to do to have the life I want to have? And so, while I wasn't the Dana that I needed to be at that point in time, I understood what she looked like and who I needed to become, and what types of actions, the things I needed to do to become her in order to have the life I wanted to have. It wasn't about the people around me, it wasn't about anyone else outside of me. It was all about me, and I'm a firm believer that when I change, the people and the things around me have no other choice but to change.
Karen Covy Host
07:11
Yep, exactly, but how did you? There had to be times there had to be times in all of the years, with six kids, that you looked at your husband and went it's your fault. It's your fault that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So how did you start to realize that you, too had a role to play in this whole drama?
Dana Cox Guest
07:34
So, yes, there were times when I really thought that the problem was all him At least I like to say that or the nights where I wanted to just smother him a little bit with a pillow, but I did not. I know everyone knows what I'm talking about, but it really kind of got to the point where a marriage is really. I had to kind of accept the fact that the marriage takes two and that I there are times when I did not handle situations the best and I had to own my role in the relationship no control over what he accepts responsibility for. But I have complete and total control over what I accept responsibility for and I know I have a mouth on me. I have a mouth on me. This tongue is like getting soothed eyes. Trust me, she's still in there.
08:28
But I have done a lot of work on me to really control my tongue, to harness the because I feel like life and death is in your mouth, and so to really kind of control the words that I use, the things that I say.
08:44
I mean even the power of your thoughts, because you know Earl Nightingale says that you know it's a matter of how you think about things. That is what comes forward right, and so what you choose to think about is what you bring about, and so it's a matter of how you choose to even look at those situations is what you kind of cause those situations to become. If you see it as a failure and it's all negative, then you're going to just draw more negativity into it, and so it really required a mindset shift and so really starting to read and follow folks like Earl Nightingale and Florence Scovel-Shinn and Abraham Hicks and those types of mindset coaches that understand the power of my mind and really how it has the power to transform your entire life and your perspective on life, and so that was really pivotal for me in this journey as well.
Karen Covy Host
09:41
That's awesome and you know, I just I really hope that people hear that, because people are always expecting someone else to change and that will change the situation. And they don't believe me when I say to them no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It all starts here. If you change, as you so eloquently put it, everything around you can't help but change. You're not the same, so it's got to change to accommodate the changes in you and that. So when you started doing this work and you started making those changes, what happened to the relationship? Did that crystallize in your mind what you already knew? Did it change your marriage? Did it what happened?
Dana Cox Guest
10:26
It really crystallized in my mind that I felt that we had come to a fork in the road and that we were just trying to stay, you know, holding ourselves together because of what everyone else told us. Right To death. Do you part blah, blah, blah. And you know the sake of what those around us think, right, what are the kids going to think? What are our friends going to think? What are people going to say?
10:48
And at the end of the day, for me it became less about what are others going to say and more or less of my health. Right? Can I look at myself in the mirror? Am I happy? And I want to put my head when I put my head down on the pillow, I want to be happy about the things I've accomplished that day, about the life that I'm living, and for me, I was not living at the pinnacle of what I thought I should, and I also didn't think that he was living at the pinnacle of what he could either, and so I thought we're doing a disservice to each other in trying to force something that had run its course.
Karen Covy Host
11:33
Yeah, and then. So you made the decision that this is going to be best for both of you and you started moving forward. But I know it wasn't easy. You were like dragging him through the mud and I love what we were talking about again before the show the idea of being strategic in your divorce. Can you tell me more about that and how you were strategic and what happened?
Dana Cox Guest
12:02
Yeah, so you're right, cause it wasn't something he wanted. Right, and so it it became. Literally there was. I was working against resistance and I didn't file for divorce right away, and so I think that is. That was the first piece of strategy. Don't just run to a lawyer. Point number one get clear on what is that, north Star, what is it you're trying to achieve, and be able to put a plan in place that will allow you to achieve those things.
12:35
So a few things that I had to do to move strategically. We have six children, but they're all adults, so we had very few assets to intertwine together, and so part of that strategy was how do we get to where we don't have assets intertwined together? That was, you know, was sell the condo. Well, it kind of worked out for me that my job was relocating me, so being relocated to a different state allowed me to kind of set the wheels in motion to be able to sell the condo, which was one of the last joint things that we had, and then take those proceeds from the condo and we mutually agreed to pay down our joint debt, which allowed us to have even less of that.
13:22
Really, in selling the condo we went through all of our belongings to determine who was getting what pieces of furniture and all of those types of things. So when I did file for divorce it was the lawyer's phrase, not mine. It was more of a kitchen table agreement. Those things had been. All the assets have already been divided. He had what he was going to have, I had what I was going to have and there was very minimal debt that was left between us.
Karen Covy Host
13:54
Yeah and. But you know, when you say it now it sounds like, oh yeah, and we did this and we did that. It like so easy peasy, right. But I know, like, how did you bring him along? What I want people to know. Like, for instance, you said, oh, we decided to sell the condo. That was not an easy task and it all fell on your shoulders and I thought you were going to have hard tech doing it all because you were packing and moving and still working and traveling all over and doing all the things. It was not an easy thing to do?
Dana Cox Guest
14:30
It was not. It took a village. Honestly, Karen, you know if I'm very was not, it took a villageUm, he did not want the divorce. He did not want, he didn't, he just was resistant to the change because it was a huge amount of change for him. Um as well, right and so. But I was bound and determined, right. So I'm, I'm you, I was the only child, so I'm like I can do this, I can pack boxes. But thank goodness for friends who were like, okay, you're packing, I'll come, I have a couple hours, I can come and help you pack, and things of that nature. And I had a very active real estate agent who probably did things that no other real estate agent on earth would do Coming to pack, bringing his mom to deep, clean and all kinds of stuff. I mean, you know, everybody rolled up their sleeves to assist with getting the house prepared around my now ex-husband.
Karen Covy Host
15:27
Yeah, and what the other thing that you did brilliantly. That is something that's really hard, especially for women, to do. Is you asked for help?
Dana Cox Guest
15:40
Yeah, yeah, and I think that that's the thing, like we want to. Women tend to suffer in silence and we feel that, by admitting that we are in the midst of suffering or we need help, that that somehow is a weakness, and the reality is it's not. It's truly a sign of strength to be able to say I have come to the end of myself and I now need to extend and I'll open myself up to be receptive of help and support. And every time I did and you know this from our conversation, I'm like I don't want to but I have to. I don't want to but I have to, and every time I did, the help poured in in abundance, more than I could even imagine, and that was such a sign of relief and it took so much stress off of me and allowed me to rest in a way that I don't think I would have been able to had I not opened my mouth and asked for the assistance.
Karen Covy Host
16:39
A hundred percent. You know and so. But you, you and I worked together and you had a plan. You were like here's what I need to do, step one, step two. I don't want to do it, and I would just look at you Okay, I'll do it, I'll do it. And you went through the steps so that at the end of the day you did. You went to the lawyer and said here's the agreement, it was all done. It's all done. If you don't mind me asking, did your how many thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, did your divorce take?
Dana Cox Guest
17:19
My divorce cost me less than $4,000 total.
I know people who have paid way way more than that. Their retainers in some cases were $25,000. And that was just the retainer.
Karen Covy Host
17:36
Mm. Hmm, you know, that's another thing that people don't realize about lawyers. They say, ok, it'll be a twenty five thousand dollar retainer, and what they hear in their head is, ok, this sucks, but the divorce is going to cost me twenty five thousand dollars, not no, that's the start.
Dana Cox Guest
17:52
Right, right. My retainer was two thousand dollars. I had to put in another two thousand dollars at some point, but then I received a check back for what was left in the account.
Karen Covy Host
18:05
That's amazing, and that's a big shout out to your lawyer too, that she actually returned the money to you, which is what lawyers are supposed to do. But it doesn't always happen that way. You know, sometimes there's extra work here, extra work there, and you know so. So you get to the end of the divorce, but we are not at the end of your story. After you go through this whole hoopla of the divorce and the drama and the everything else, you sell the condo, you move, you do all the things. What happened next in your life?
Dana Cox Guest
Oh my, I gotta let go from my job.
Karen Covy Host
This is which is just mind-blowing. I mean, you worked harder than anybody. I know you were always on the go, you were always working hard, but life, as you say, life life's. It happens. You, you got let go, and then what?
Dana Cox Guest
19:02
I traveled for six weeks.
19:05
Look at you, you didn't curl up in a ball and feel sorry for yourself.
Dana Cox Guest
19:11
Well, actually I got let go. That morning I came home and I popped a bottle of champagne. So at 9.30 in the morning I'm like it's five o'clock somewhere. I am going to celebrate because I am a firm believer. I've had many pivots in life and I was at a conference and I was in this session and it was embrace the pivot, Embrace the pivot is all I kept hearing while I was in this session and I was like I have no idea what's about to occur in my life, but I am getting the sneaky suspicion that there's a pivot amongst me. And literally it was probably a week and a half after that conference that I had this pivot happen and so I was like, hey, I'm going to embrace it, I'm going to lean into it.
19:55
I have never shied away from my prior pivots in life, and some of them have been pivots to the point where they could have been catastrophic. You know, my seventh child passed away 24 years ago. That was probably the biggest and most, I would say, earth shattering pivot in life for me. But I'm still standing after that and so I'm like the loss of a job If I can still stand after the loss of my kid. I can still standing after that. And so I'm like the loss of a, if I can still stand after the loss of my kid, I can still stand after anything. And so I compare a lot of my pivots to the one that could have literally taken me out, and if it's nowhere in fails in comparison, I know I can get through it.
Karen Covy Host
20:37
That's amazing and, you know, losing a child. I don't think there's anything worse in life than that for a parent, because it's not the way things are supposed to be.
Dana Cox Guest
20:47
Right. None of us prepare for that. We always prepare that we're going to precede our children and there is no book to tell you, as a parent, how to navigate that, no matter what time, when it happens, you know, during pregnancy, after pregnancy, if it happens when they're a teenager, there are no. No one can tell you how to navigate that aspect of a journey as a parent, and you just do it the best way. You know how. And for me, having six children at home, um, I knew that I had to hold myself together in order to help them navigate. Um, the loss of a sibling, um, so me curling up in a ball was not an option, uh, then, nor now. And uh, so with the job loss, you know I'm like it's a job. I've had many um, and I'll. You know I can have another if I choose to.
Karen Covy Host
21:44
So well and I'm not sure I'm you've got so many gifts to share with the world. I'm not sure if you're going to choose another job, but you have started a new career in a new business. Tell me about that
Dana Cox Guest
21:55
So I decided, while I was doing my travel perspective, I really had been working on standing up my coaching and consulting business on the side. But because of all the travel, as you know, I was doing in the work and things of that nature, I really didn't have the time and the attention that it needed in order to lay a solid foundation so that I can support women organizations to in the way that I know I'm gifted to and meant to. So I started my Fixed Coaching.
Karen Covy Host
22:37
So you started it. And what's the? What's the dream? Where do you see yourself going with it?
Dana Cox Guest
22:42
Oh my gosh, so I. There are so many women that are out here, in corporate spaces or business owners even, and I think women are born into a sense of servitude and a lot.
22:56
Right, we, that's how we come into this world, and the first thing they give us is a baby doll, and they teach us teach us how to take care of everyone else, and we do that. We always prioritize the needs of others ahead of ourselves, and so, also, society tells us that it's either this or that, right, it's either the success or the family, and I firmly believe that women can have it all. I subscribe to that. I think the way in which we go about having it all, though, is that we have to define what all means for us as an individual. We're all like snowflakes. We have unique fingerprints, and so our definition of all looks different for each of us, and that all definition evolves as we evolve, and so I feel like it's my calling in life to want to empower women, but also help them balance their professional pursuits with having a thriving personal life as well life as well.
Karen Covy Host
24:04
I love that. I totally love that, and I love that your definition of all depends on what the person wants, because you know we're all different. Some people might not want a career, and that's perfectly fine. They might not be cut out to be an entrepreneur Totally fine. It's what does all mean for you, and I think that's beautiful.
Dana Cox Guest
24:21
Yeah, and it's really. It's not just what it means for you today, right? What it means for me today looks one way. What it means for me next may be totally different, but I get to choose A hundred percent, and that's the power.
Karen Covy Host
24:36
Yes, and you did choose. You exercised your power of choice. That's important for people to hear. They didn't sit like the podcast says. They didn't sit on the fence going. I don't know. Yes, no, maybe you chose.
Dana Cox Guest
24:52
Oh yeah, I chose me. Right, I chose me, whether it's through the through divorce, or even in starting my company. I chose me and I'm betting on me 100%.
Karen Covy Host
25:06
I would take that bet any day of the week. But before we wrap up and bring your story to a close, I want to ask you about something else that has happened in your life, and that is are you spending all your days home alone watching television and eating ice cream by yourself?
Dana Cox Guest
25:28
No, I'm not. I'm dating. I'm dating. I have a special someone in my life has had my journey for the last several months and it's been very nice to share time and space with someone who I am aligned with on many levels.
Karen Covy Host
25:48
And that's beautiful, and the reason I asked about this was not to pry. But so many people, when they're on the front end of the journey, they don't believe it can ever happen for them. I have clients who say to me is there such a thing as a happy marriage? Can you really be in a good relationship Whether you choose to get married again or not? That's not the point. The point is do you have that special someone? And what they really wanna know is it possible for me? What would you tell those people?
Dana Cox Guest
26:23
I would absolutely say it is possible for you. It is possible to have what it is. I affirm that my grandmother used to say you know, once you become that which you desire, you will attract it, and so, in me becoming the who I desire, I've been able to draw that into my life, and it has been really magical. I now, at 53, understand what that, what that phrasing meant. I just thought she was crazy before. Now I actually understand what she meant by those wise words, wise words.
27:05
And I also think that, as we are dating on the other side of divorce, it's important to look at people and understand, be your authentic self and also allow people to be their authentic self. No one has time for representatives, so I think that that's also really important. Be clear on what it is you want, be crystal clear on what that looks like, what that relationship looks like, because I think that you know we don't get prescriptive, and I think you should be just as prescriptive about what you're looking for in a relationship as you are your Chipotle order or the Starbucks with the coffee, with the this, not that, and the this and the that.
27:53
And the yeah, absolutely, because we're so prescriptive about what we want. In, like Chipotle, you have all these choices right In Starbucks, too, but you have to make all these decisions as you go through the line so that you get exactly what it is you want on the end Right, and we do that in that, in that situation, but we don't do that in our relationships. We don't even do that in the jobs that we choose to go into, and I think that the relationships that we have, the jobs that we enter, have just as much impact on us, if not more, than the food that we consume has on our health and our waistlines. Right, the people that we spend the most time with are the sum we're the sum of that, and so if they're broken emotionally, physically, spiritually, financially we're broken too. So it's really important who you choose to surround yourself.
Karen Covy Host
28:42
Yeah, that is definitely words for the wise. So, Dana, thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on here sharing your story and just being a shining example of what's possible what's possible for everyone who's out there who wants it possible, what's possible for everyone who's out there who wants it?
Dana Cox Guest
29:04
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I thank you so much for sharing time and space with me and allowing me to share your platform and to share about my story. I really appreciate it and you know I love talking to you.
Karen Covy Host
29:14
That's true, you and I could talk for a very long time, but in the interest of time, let's wrap this up. And if people want to learn more about the Fixed Coaching System, if they want to learn more about you and connect with you or are interested in what you're doing, where can they find you?
Dana Cox Guest
29:29
So you can find me on LinkedIn. Dana L Cox. I am an avid poster on LinkedIn, so you can find me there. Connect with me there. You can also find me at DanaLCox.com. I have my own website or at FixCoaching.com.
Karen Covy Host
29:48
hat's beautiful and look see, you've got all the things in place already. I mean, I really want people to take advantage of everything that you offer and to take advantage of the inspiration you offer more than anything else, because you really are an inspiration. So thank you, thank you. Thank you for being here and for those of you out here who are listening, who are watching. If you enjoyed today's episode, if you want more of it, do me a favor. Give this episode a thumbs up, like subscribe everywhere, and I look forward to seeing you again next time.
