Minter Dialogue with Dana Cox

I had the pleasure of speaking with Dana Cox, a business strategist, coach, and author from St. Louis. We delved into her journey from burnout to becoming a ‘badass’, as detailed in her book “From Burnout to Badass”. Dana shared her personal experience of overcoming burnout, which stemmed from years of overcompensation and juggling multiple responsibilities. We discussed the challenges of recognizing burnout and the importance of self-knowledge in overcoming it. Dana emphasized the need to rewrite one’s life story and the power of admitting when the life you’ve built no longer serves you. We explored the concept of work-life harmony rather than balance, and how cultural expectations can create unique challenges for women. Dana also shared insights on authentic leadership and creating joyful work environments. The conversation touched on the ‘success tax’ and ‘joy tax’, highlighting the importance of celebrating small wins and fostering a positive work culture. Overall, it was an enlightening discussion on personal growth, leadership, and finding joy in one’s professional life.

Please send me your questions — as an audio file if you’d like — to nminterdial@gmail.com. Otherwise, below, you’ll find the show notes and, of course, you are invited to comment. If you liked the podcast, please take a moment to rate it here.

To connect with Dana Cox:

• Check out Dana’s eponymous site here
• Find/buy Dana Cox’s book, “From Burnout to Badass: Flip the Script on Your Work-Life Story,” here
• Find/follow Dana Cox on LinkedIn

Further resources for the Minter Dialogue podcast:

Meanwhile, you can find my other interviews on the Minter Dialogue Show in this podcast tab, on Megaphone or via Apple Podcasts. If you like the show, please go over to rate this podcast via RateThisPodcast! And for the francophones reading this, if you want to get more podcasts, you can also find my radio show en français over at: MinterDial.fr, on Megaphone or in iTunes. Music credit: The jingle at the beginning of the show is courtesy of my friend, Pierre Journel, author of the Guitar Channel. And, the new sign-off music is “A Convinced Man,” a song I co-wrote and recorded with Stephanie Singer back in the late 1980s (please excuse the quality of the sound!).

Transcription courtesy of Flowsend.ai, an AI full-service for podcasters

Minter Dial: Dana Cox, great to have you on from St. Louis, Missouri, where you live. I understand. In your own words, because I always like to have come from directly. Who is Dana Cox?

Dana Cox: Dana Cox is a. I’m business strategist, a coach, an author, a mom, a grandmother. I’m a lot of things. A lot of things. But I am a joyful human being that is definitely in pursuit of love, peace, happiness and seeing what I can. The impact I can make on the world.

Minter Dial: Well, that’s a lovely thing. I mean, I. I have another podcast on another sport called the Joy of Padel. So, I think we must have some kindred spirit and the idea of bringing joy to the world. So, author, you’re a multiple time author. Your, Your last book, which is the one I want to talk to you about, is From Burnout to Badass and a title that raises eyebrows. Badass is. I mean, it sounds like bad ass, as in, you know, there’s something naughty about it and obviously it’s not, but it’s the idea of having bad in you. I was wondering if you related to that at all. Is that okay?

Dana Cox: It is okay. I think that for me, what it means is that there’s a. There’s a unique and spicy aspect to my personality that is wholly mine and there’s none other like me. And that’s okay. Right? I can be bold and I can be audacious and unapologetic about who I am and what I bring and what I offer. And oftentimes I think in prior to, you know, the other side of my journey, it was really my focus was more on making other people comfortable, shrinking myself and my uniqueness in certain rooms because Lord forbid I make others feel uncomfortable with who I am and what I bring forward. And I think that that’s the rule in life that is well worth rewriting.

Minter Dial: Well, in that there’s this notion of being of service to others. I look at that as a positive side of that piece. But of course, if it’s subsuming who you are and not allowing yourself to be, then that can be a treacherous thing to do, to be too much of service. All right, So, burnout is a topic I have. I’ve had several people across the times. It’s been 15 years of interviewing people and I’ve had some people with burnout. But it’s always been a little bit foreign to me because I’ve never experienced burnout, or at least I don’t think I have. So, I always invite the guests to lay out for me. How does one understand that one has burnout. I, I see a lot of people fatigued, a lot of people stressed, and I don’t know if they are actually suffering from maybe some depression or something else. How do you figure out self-diagnose oneself as burned out?

Dana Cox: You know, it’s real interesting, right? So, for me, I didn’t think I was burned out, if I’m honest. Mentor. I think from, from my perspective as a high achieving individual, you know, I thought just a little tired, just a little fatigued, I can do this, I can do this. I got this. I just need a nap, right. And oftentimes I think that we think that burnout is something that we are not susceptible to because that just seems So, far out of reach.

Minter Dial: But we don’t do that.

Dana Cox: But there are truly 12 different stages of burnout, right? And so, as you, you know, as things go unaddressed, right, you guys kind of get further and further down the pike until all of a sudden you find yourself there. But it’s not, you don’t necessarily understand that you’re on the path to there, right? You have this compulsion to prove yourself, to work harder and things of that nature. You’re, you know, you’re neglecting your own needs, you’re prioritizing the needs of others. Displacement of conflict and withdrawal, denial of emerging problems. So, there are different stages that we go through, but if we’re not looking out for it, then nine times out of 10 we’re going to miss the fact that we’re even on the path to burn it.

Minter Dial: Yeah, I suppose the ideal is to sort of figure out before you end up down the, the in the bottom of the pit. Do you think that the phenomenon of burnout has possibly changed over the last few decades? Or has it always existed and the same symptoms, like we’re just humans the same way all the time? Burnout is, has always been there. I was just wondering what your take on that would be.

Dana Cox: I do think that it’s always been there in some shape, form or fashion. I think we got to a point where we were seeing it more and more probably at the height of COVID things of that nature where, you know, especially when we were all in our homes and especially for like parents, right? You’re in your home, you are now doing your job and being the caretaker, doing your normal home things. And when you have children, you are now also the school teacher, the before school, the after-school, you’re doing all of these things all at once. And I think just the culmination of all of that just compounded. We saw that in a lot of our healthcare workers with the demands on them during the height of that crisis as well. And I think then it became a little more evident and became more part of the conversation.

Minter Dial: Right. Well, for sure, there was a different kind of situation that provoked more burnout, I guess. I. The line of inquiry I have sometimes is with regard to the resilience factor. So, let’s say our great grandparents, yours and mine, were presumably, you know, just tolerated a lot more shit. Right. And. And whatever that was, it was, you know, in different contexts, of course, but the, the. The way our older generations managed to deal, I mean, a number of wars that they had to go through, you know, and other social constructs and situations today without having had to go to war. It feels like sometimes the level of resilience is lower because there’s a lesser understanding of what is significant hardship. If I. Around me in London, I was lucky enough to meet a woman who lived through the Blitz and lost her husband and her father in the same process. And I thought that was a. That’s significant hardship. And it was no wonder that when I talked to her about COVID she said, well, this is nothing compared to real hardship. I’m not dismissing people’s experiences and what you’re saying about the amount of work and the stress and all that that existed, but I just feel like over these decades we’ve come to a place where we’re more accepting of the good news, but maybe we’re not always as resilient as we were bad news.

Dana Cox: I do think that that depends on the individual, the cultural background, because I do think that there are communities under marginalized communities that when they step outside of their homes, they are going to a sense of war in their own existence. And that varies based up where you are economically, what things you have access to. And so, I do think that what burnout and resilience looks like differs based upon your circumstances, because not everyone has access to all the same things. And when you have access to, you know, disposable income and different programming and resources, you are probably not as resilient as someone who doesn’t have access to those things that they have to really, you know, breadcrumb their way through it, white knuckle their way through it because they don’t have the disposable income. They really are trying to stretch the ends to make it meet, or they’re working two or three jobs just to pay their rent and take care of their families and things of that Nature. So, I think the level of resilience really does depend on your socioeconomic makeup and the things that you have access to as well.

Minter Dial: Well, my perspective on this actually comes from the. The notion of the more. I mean, in my circle, I’m lucky enough to be privileged, and I see a lot less resilience amongst the privileged that I’m talking about. That’s really what I’m getting at.

Dana Cox: Yes, yes, I would agree with that.

Minter Dial: Diminishing other people’s, you know, hardships, if you will, you know, if they’re coming out and they’re, they’re their war, because, you know, whatever’s happening outside is, Is, you know, against them. But it just feels like, I mean, whether it’s other terms like anxiety or depression, there’s much more of it. And I, I just wonder to what extent it’s a change in the way we view it as opposed to an incorporated experience. Like we might have had burnout 200 years ago because you’re working 22 hours a day in some coal mine and wow, the terminology. Burnout. Well, you know, it just doesn’t. It wasn’t room for it.

Dana Cox: No, no, I agree with you on that. I do think that from a privileged perspective, things have gotten softer. Right. We’re a lot less resilient. And I do think that, you know, when I think about future generations. Right. Those to come, you know, there are things that we, as a parent, you want to. You don’t want your kids to kind of have to deal with or go through the things that you’ve gone. But in some of that, we are making life a lot easier. So, therefore, they are a lot less resilient than we might be in our current generation.

Minter Dial: Yeah, that is, that was definitely more the angle that I was wanting to talk about. But let’s, let’s flip into your story of burnout And so, give us a little bit of a backstory on how you got into that burnout and how did you come to sort of flip the switch?

Dana Cox: Yeah. So, when I think about my journey now on this side of it, I probably was on a fast path to burnout for a long time, unknowingly, when I think back to being a teenager. Right. I was, you know, the one in my family. Right. Good grades, you know, high performing student, things of that nature. Responsible, responsible, all the things. But then I, then I got pregnant, and lo and behold, what a devastating thing for my family. It was a shock and disruption for them and really a failure for me in their eyes. And I spent a long path of my life, trying to overcome that failure, making up for that disappointment, working harder, getting the degrees, climbing the corporate ladder, working really hard, probably over performing in a lot of ways to make up for that failure from back then. And that really put me on a path to burnout. You know, it’s, it was in the over performance and the always raising my hand and taking on all the extra assignments, you know, going to school at night, working during the day, taking care of my, my six children and one.

Minter Dial: At the first bit, one to begin with and then five more afterwards. Wow.

Dana Cox: Yeah, well, and I’m so, let me just kind of say this. I’m a mom of seven. I have one daughter and six sons. I say raising six because my seventh child passed away at birth. And so, that, that coupled with going to school and I was in my master’s program at the time of his passing. So, I’m in my master’s by MBA program. I have six children at home, I have a high demanding job, and I am now needing to manage the grief of the loss, yet still be mom because the kids still want to know what’s for dinner. Right. And you only get six weeks off. I mean now they get a lot more time off when they are on parental leave. But I had six weeks to get back to work and the expectation when I returned was as if nothing had transpired. Right. I was still expected to perform and produce and do the things as if I hadn’t had that lived experience.

Minter Dial: Yeah.

Dana Cox: And that all kind of was compounded on my shoulders. Right. And so, carting the kids here, there, everywhere, most of my meals in the car, not taking lunches, eating at my desk if I ate at all. And I looked one night, two in the morning, I caught my own reflection in the kitchen window, and I didn’t recognize the woman looking back at me. I had compounded to 287 pounds and had no idea how I got there. I know it wasn’t overnight, but my health was really suffering as a result of prioritizing the needs of everyone else and putting mine on the back burner.

Minter Dial: That makes sense. And it further makes sense to that comment of, of long and fast, because long and fast don’t usually go together, you know, So, one, it’s a hundred-meter sprint, but yours is a sort of a marathonian sprint that ends up like that. And so, at that moment you self-awarely understand that you’re burned out. Is that what that happened? Someone will say to you, hey, listen.

Dana Cox: So, what I realized was what I was Doing wasn’t working like I was doing all the things that I was told that I needed to do in order to grow my career to be successful professionally. Right. And I should be really happy personally. And I wasn’t, was I? On paper, externally, yes, my career looked amazing. But internally on the inside, I was dying on the inside. Because when you’re the strong one, you’re the one that everybody turns to and comes to. When you need someone to go to, who do you go to? And no one expects you to have a need of support in the same way. And so, you’re in silence.

Minter Dial: You say it again.

Dana Cox: You suffer in silence.

Minter Dial: You suffer in silence. It sounded like there’s this pressure that came that you self imposed. I would add some level from your parents and you were always trying to match up to this image that I’m, I’m better than the kid that had this early child look at me, I can do that. And, and I have to imagine that in this moment. You also said, well, I have to flip that switch and not make it about what they think of me, but maybe more what I think of me.

Dana Cox: Yeah, absolutely. It was, it was. I’m not, I’ve been living my life based upon someone else’s definition of what success and all of these things look like. And that’s not working because it got me here. If I strip everyone else away, what, what does it look like for me? In order for me to have true peace and harmony within myself that allows me to put my head on the pillow at night and feel very happy about the day that I’ve accomplished, but still have a sense of wholeness and peace within. And that is when I needed to make a different decision on what pursuit look look like for me and how I was going to do that. It was not an overnight journey to getting back to myself as you will, but it was a journey worth doing because I know the path I was on was not going to lead to an optimal life. And being, being now on this side having a, have being a grandmother. I rem day my daughter told me that they were expecting and I’m like, I need to do something different because if I want to be here for my grandchildren and have a, have experiences with them and fun with them and be able to be in their lives the way I desire to, I can’t do, I can’t continue to do things the same way.

Minter Dial: Well, there’s no doubt. I mean I only have two children and when you have seven like that it’s, or you know, So, many Mouths to feed, to take care of you. You must have had very, if ever, any time to yourself.

Dana Cox: Yeah, very, very little. Very. 10 minutes in the car alone was precious.

Minter Dial: Yeah. I mean, usually the telephone’s ringing probably because, you know, one or other kid forgot something. And. But so, but in, in this process, then you, you, because you write about it, this notion of self-knowledge, it seems fundamental in order to get to that place of self-knowledge, discarding these images and perceptions that others have of you, to have that tranquility of time, to get into the. Who am I? The first question asked, really. So, how did you go about carving out that space, time, energy to do that work, as you say? Because it takes time.

Dana Cox: It takes time. Really. I had to get clear on if I really wanted to change. Right. Things that I was doing had to change. And so, I did a time inventory. Right. How am I spending my time? What am I spending my time on? Because if I need to make time, I need to make the time to do the work necessary for me. That means some things have to go. And that came. That was a difficult thing to do because it came with disappointing some people because I was doing things for others. I was prioritizing their needs that I had to now say no to. And of course, you know, they don’t want to hear that. And you know, a lot of times, you know, I’ll phrase it like this. A lot of times we’re tap dancing or the needs of other people, and we know that we need to stop dancing. We need to get off the dance floor. But in getting off the dance floor, that means that there is a possibility that these people that have applauded us, have clapped for us, have been a part of our lives, cheering us on will stop. And a lot of times we don’t. We’re afraid of that. We’re afraid of that. And because it is a very lonely place. It is. That’s the type of silence that stings, that doesn’t feel good. And it also brings you face to face with the question, were they ever really here for me or just the role I played for them? And that is. That’s scary. It’s a square. A scary question to have to ask and answer.

Minter Dial: Yep. I was having that conversation with a rather wealthy man the other day. And you’re wondering to what extent the people around him are his friends.

Dana Cox: You know, I’ve. I’ve experienced that even in, in later parts in life. Right. With restructuring and, and, you know, leaving corporate because of, you know, the way role restructures and things of that nature. And you do the things that you do because of who you are and truly because of you care about the people that you are around. And when you are no longer in that role, in that job, fulfilling that particular position and the text messages stop and the call stop and the invitations for lunch or happy hour stop, you. You become. You come face to face with that same question yet again.

Minter Dial: It is funny. Yeah. And at the same time, another thing which can happen when you have a vibe like you have, Dana, a good energy and you’re in a good place, it also tends to attract other people frequently who are in need of that energy. And I would suspect that there’s times when you might have to catch yourself again from rolling back into the, you know, the energizer bunny that is able to tap dance. Because I know how to.

Dana Cox: So, true. Literally just happened this weekend. True story, Victor. It just happened this weekend. And it’s. It’s really a natural. It’s very unconscious. Right. Behavior is like, I know how to fix that. I can do that just like that. And I literally had to catch myself and go, although I know how to. And I can. Is it mine to own? It’s not mine to own. And I can hold space for this individual and support them in a way, but not take it on as my responsibility. And I had to have that conversation and say, I love you and I support you and I’m rooting for you, I’m praying for you, I’m holding space for you. I’m here to be a listening ear, but I cannot own this for you.

Minter Dial: And I do feel like that is a. An appropriate framework for bringing up children as well. Yes, but let’s put. Park that one just for a second. Although it might be related to this next question, your subtitle caught me. So, it says, flip the switch on your work life story. So, my first question is, is there such a thing as a work life balance?

Dana Cox: I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I think there are times in which you are giving more of yourself to your family and in your life. And then there are other times where, you know, work takes a priority. So, I don’t think it’s 50 50. I think it ebbs and flows based upon where you are and what’s happening in your life. So, I think balance is the wrong term. I’d like to say harmony because, you know, when you think about music and harmony, there are different. Different times, different notes take priority. And I think life and work are a Little bit more like that. So, it’s. It’s symphony that you create.

Minter Dial: Super. A symphony. Well, well, what is the. The work life story? How did. I mean, let’s. We’re. Now that we’re talking about the nuts and bolts of the. The moving from burnout to badass, which is, as I understood it, this. Flipping your life work story. How do you articulate that sort of flip?

Dana Cox: Yeah. So, for me, it was really understanding the. The journey. The story that had been written was no longer serving the woman that I was or the woman that I was becoming. And so, in. In understanding that. Right. It really required me to rewrite what that looked like, which a lot of times people don’t talk about. The. One of the most powerful things you can do for yourself is to admit that the life you’ve built no longer serves who you’ve become or who you are becoming. And that’s a very scary thing to admit and to do, but it is. It can be a very necessary thing for you to do, especially if you have a purpose, a vision, a mission on your life that you are here to fulfill. We can’t do that from a place of comfort. Excuse me.

Minter Dial: Well, I very much like what you said. I want to just reflect on it, which is if you have to realize that the person you become is not of service to the person you want to be, which means that you need to know who you want to be. And I think that maybe is also something that people are very uncomfortable with, coming to grips with.

Dana Cox: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Because I think a lot of times I have a few friends who are in fields that they didn’t really choose. It was, like, chosen for them. You will be a dentist. You are going to be a doctor. Right. And that’s what they are. But it’s not a very fulfilling role or career for them because, you know, one is really into astrology. That is really her gifting. She lights up like a Christmas tree, and she’s been studying it on the side for a very long time. But that is really what motivates her, what she loves to do. And if she were to operate fully in the gift that she has and in a space that she’s passionate about, how different she would show up in the world, like you. My kids are all very different, and I wanted them to do things that lit them up, that they were excited to leap out of bed to do. My oldest son is a dog trainer. It is not the career I would have chosen for him, however, it is a career that he absolutely loves to do absolutely loves to do. And he thinks about it. In a way, I get to do this. And so, it brings me joy seeing him do something that brings him joy. So, I just think that people need to think about what really lights me up. If you get the Monday morning blues on Sunday before you have to go to work, maybe that’s not the thing you should be doing, you know, going forward. Or maybe there’s other things that you need to assess and kind of peel back the layers on. But we need to slow down enough mentor to give ourselves the opportunity to assess it. And I think we stay busy because we don’t want to sit with our own thoughts and with our own selves to really look in the mirror and do the reflection. That’s necessary.

Minter Dial: All right, So, I’m going to throw at you a couple of or a mixture of thoughts. The first is, I’m hoping you meant the pun that the life of a dentist can’t be fulfilling. Second of all, a doctor, how can a doctor not feel fulfilled by the role of being a doctor? It sounds like one of those jobs that is purpose led from the get go. And then the third thought, my son loves dogs as well and was a dog walker trainer during COVID and it brought him tremendous comfort. And I always say that if I can touch a dog or a cat every day, even a wild one, it makes my day. The point I wanted to get to was that sometimes, especially when you’re younger, you might say, oh, I love this activity, you know, I love football, or I, I love throwing darts. The, the issue is, how are you going to make that a, you know, a career or, you know, is there a career there to be had or is it just a moment in time that you enjoy? And, and I think that a lot of kids today are looking at every job as a transaction to help them get their flat or get whatever it is that they want to have, which is So, hard to get these days. And therefore, they kind of put aside what you were mentioning as the side hustle of being an astrologer. Because this idea of side hustle, I wish I could make money doing my side hustle. Well, I have to do the job in that. Moving into that side hustle, assuming it’s a long term and useful as in, you know, you can really make your money out of it. Because if it’s tiddlywinks, I don’t know if you know what tiddlywinks is, you know, and that’s your passion, right? I’m going to say good luck to you making a career out of tiddlywinks.

Dana Cox: Right.

Minter Dial: You know, So, finding that balance. And I was wondering how you would architect a response to that to someone who says, well, I just love tiddlywinks.

Dana Cox: Or, you know, well, trust me, I’ve had this conversation with my own children because. Because they’ve. Throughout their journeys, right. They’ve had different ideas of what they wanted to do. And so, my questions are, okay, how do you. How does one make money doing that? That’s great that you love it, right? But how do you. How do you monetize that? Can you monetize that? I don’t know. I need to figure it out. Okay, well, let’s figure that out first because this might not necessarily be the plan or be the path if you can’t figure out how to monetize it in such a way that you can take care of your daily needs.

Minter Dial: Right?

Dana Cox: Because if you can’t take care of your daily needs, that requires, you know, that means mom may be on the hook for. For, you know, your day again, yet again, which mom does not desire to do. That does not bring me great, tremendous joy. Right? So, let’s find a. Let’s. Let’s do the work necessary to figure out if you can monetize it. If you can monetize it. Great. That’s awesome. Now I have some additional questions for you. I never wanted to tell my children that they can’t. Right. You can’t do that. Or, you know, for, like, for lack of better. That’s stupid or whatever. I wanted them to really just do the work and dive deeper. Always asking them more questions, How. What if. Because if they are doing the work to investigate, they’re going to find the answers themselves.

Minter Dial: They’re creative.

Dana Cox: They’re very, you know, So, if. And I also have learned if you tell them not to, they’re going to do it anyway. Say, no, don’t do that. Of course I’m going to go do that. Right, because you said not to. So, it was. It was a way in which my grandparents did me. They. They never said no, they never said don’t. They just said, that’s interesting. Have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? And so, they always encourage me to find the answers, to really ask questions, to be inquisitive and to trust my own instincts. And they told me, some things you’re going to get right, you’re going to knock them out of the park, and other things are going to fail, and that’s okay, but you’re going to Learn a lesson in the failure, and then you need to get up, dust yourself off, and get back in the game.

Minter Dial: And this, for me, circles back and this is in my narrative to this notion of being a badass, where, you know, you. You can try hard and sometimes you’ll succeed and sometimes you’ll fail. And the taste for risk and failure is So, important in. In experiencing life and. And presumably getting towards some form of whatever you def. Success.

Dana Cox: Absolutely. Absolutely. I am definitely a risk taker. I’m a risk taker. I like to be the first. I like to do a lot of first and I think over the course of my corporate career, I have done a lot of first and I think pioneering. I loved it, like. And if it was a new job that no one had ever done, sign me up.

Minter Dial: Nightmare for many.

Dana Cox: Sign me up because it allowed me to then create what it became. And I love being able to be that allowed my creative juices to come forth and, you know, I didn’t necessarily have to fit into a box that someone else had created because I’m not to be boxed in.

Minter Dial: All right, So, this isn’t a zone. I’m not. When I read it, I had. I had to read it over a few times. And you wrote your culture, it’s part of your power, but let’s be clear, it doesn’t get to limit you. And so, I looked. I had to sort of try to dial in on it, no pun intended, on my last name, but. So, how do you. How do cultural expectations create unique challenges of burnout for women of different backgrounds? Give us a little bit of a. That’s meat to chew on with regard.

Dana Cox: Yeah. So, in. From a cultural perspective, women are viewed differently in different, you know, cultures. Right. I think about in the Asian culture, they are a little more subservient. They. They don’t. They don’t have a. As much of a voice. The man is ahead of the household. You know, in this society, that is when you have that as your cultural background, you take on a lot more. You don’t necessarily speak up about your needs and what you’re experienc. In the African American community where I’m from, you know, we have broad shoulders, we carry a lot, and there are a lot of us who are the heads of our families, even though we may have a significant other, we are the driving force. We are really the organizers, the orchestrators, the planners, and all of those types of things. And there is an expectation, whether it’s spoken or unspoken, that we are also the caregivers for the older generation and things of that nature. So, we tend to take on the weight of, I’m going to say, the world in a lot of ways. And there’s just. It’s. It’s. There are the things that are passed down to us, whether based upon what is demonstrated from those who came before us, that have a lot of impact on the women that we become, the individuals that we become, because, you know, we’re seeing it demonstrated. And while we can, they may say, do as I say, not as I do. And I know I’ve said that to my children, they tend to do what they see you do. And that is what generally tends to have. It’s the coat or the armor that we wear. Right. But for me, I’ve traveled a lot. I’ve gotten an opportunity to travel the world and have cultural experiences with people from other nationalities and other backgrounds. And I have found there are things that I have in common with them. But I also have found that there are different ways of doing things from what was demonstrated for me or what was taught to me. That has opened my eyes to other opportunities within my own life. And so, therefore, it’s taken some limits off of me where I thought that I had to do it this way. I don’t have to do it that way. I think about. There’s a story about a young lady who cooked a ham. And the way she was taught to cook the ham, her mother always cut the butt off the ham, and her mother always cut the butt off the ham because that’s what she saw her mother do, right? And so, this young lady asked her grandmother, why do you cut the butt off the ham? The grandmother said, because my pan was too small. It was not anything crazy, anything weird or crazy or anything special about it. She just had a pan that was of a particular size, which is why she always cut this end off the ham. Well, the mother. The future generations to come just did it because they saw it done. They didn’t really understand the reason behind why she did it.

Minter Dial: I have to. I have to imagine, Dana, that there are many things that have been passed down like that. I mean, in. In. I mean, I’m not religious, but the notion of the Virgin Mary, for example, it’s come down and according to some theologian, that the initial reason why the Virgin Mary had children, not just Jesus, but some siblings, without having to have sex, is that they had a change in the way that they translated from the Greek into Latin. I know it was in a translation. Or from Hebrew into Latin. And the Hebrew word was meant virgin or young girl. And the translation they took the virgin version as opposed to young girl. And that is we had the Virgin Mary. So, the point I was trying to get to is that sometimes something has happened a long time ago, we just continue to believe it or do it without really going in and, you know, looking under the hood. So, another thing you talk a lot about is authenticity and knowledge of self and. But you also talk. And there’s lots of taxes and there’s this trap, and trap is also in the name of my new book. But you discussed the authenticity trap and this idea of having a carefully crafted personality or representation of who you are. How can leaders really lean into the more authentic cells that might be underneath them when they’ve been, as you write, code switching or maybe wearing masks?

Dana Cox: Yeah, for me, it was being vulnerable. Right. And that was the biggest piece for me. I was able to create an environment when I was able to tell my team, I don’t have all the answers. I don’t. And while I would love to have a lot of the answers and I probably have more lived experience and I have a lot of things that I can offer you, but I learn just as much from you as you are learning from me in this process. I put my pants on one leg at a time. Just like, really?

Minter Dial: You’re crazy.

Dana Cox: Really? Really? I know if there are two people out there that do both legs at the same time, you know, God bless you. But I’m still a one leg at a time type of girl. And I think for me, in doing that, it allowed them to feel like, okay, she’s not superhuman and she’s not expecting me to be superhuman. I think a lot of times leaders just need to be able to be authentic and say, today is not a good day. And I had no problem in doing that for a while. It was difficult to. Because you try to be the strong one and all of that. But on the other side of the. Sometimes I say, I’ve been burned out and crispy. On the other side of being crispy, mentor, I was able to kind of say, you know, today is not a really good day. I’m struggling today and I only have capacity for X. Is it really, really important that you need me to create capacity to support you, or can we do this conversation tomorrow? In me doing that, they understood that they could also do that with me. And so, I think you create an environment of safety when you allow people to just show up as they general as they are. And I think that employees really just Want to be seen, heard, and understood by those that are leading them. They want to know that you see them as a human being first, not just the work that they do for you. And that was important to me. You know, I literally had this conversation this weekend at the Women’s Conference, wanting to make sure that I understood who the people were on my team. I knew who was married, who wasn’t, who was taking care of elderly parents who had children. And in understanding them as human beings, what motivated them, what lit them up, what were their strengths and their areas of opportunity, what were their desires that allowed me as a leader to better understand how to get the best out of them, the things that they could do to help support the organization that really played on their strengths, but also gave them opportunities to stretch and to grow, and that fostered an environment that was unlike any other. And I think a lot of times leaders just talk to those that directly report to them. They don’t necessarily talk to people within the ranks of the organization. And that’s more talking to, talking at, versus really taking the time to connect and get to know and understand. And, you know, I think that is, to me, servant leadership is really a gift. It is a gift to the people that you lead, but it’s also a huge and tremendous gift to you as a leader.

Minter Dial: Yeah, this notion of humanism, where you’re thinking about the human as opposed to the laborer, is a vital one. A couple of thoughts, sort of the last section I want to talk to you about, because we mentioned cultural baggage, if you will. You know, the way we are and the way we’ve been brought up. And I was sort of relating into what you said in some regards, because I was brought up to have a stiff upper lip and, and. And just get over it. You know, put up your socks. And I played rugby for 18 years. No protection. You just go out there and you do it. So, you have to embrace risk at that point, bodily damage. And then. And then you just don’t complain about it. You don’t whimper. And. And so, going in and being vulnerable for me was certainly something of a revelation. So, that. That’s. I felt like that there’s a. Something similar in our cultural backgrounds that brought us to that same place where vulnerability wasn’t the sort of the desired element. Of course, when you get into an office and you have So, many things to do, you do need to carve out the presence, that calmness to be present with the others as opposed to talking at them or getting things done or getting the Numbers in, because that also is the reality of performance. And so, for a leader who’s trying to bring this more servant leadership style, more humanism into it, how do you help them? I mean, presumably in the work that you do to bring them into that fold.

Dana Cox: It really starts with assessing where they are. Right. Where. Where are you on. On that spectrum? Right. And what are the things that you need to accomplish? What’s the end goal that we’re trying to get to? I think it’s really important that you always start from a place of clarity. You got to understand the current state and the desired future state, and then we can engineer our way into how do we get there. And every person, every individual is very different. And so, it’s providing them with the support, the guidance, and the roadmap that’s uniquely theirs is part of the journey that we go on together. But everyone is different. And some people don’t want to be servant leaders. And that’s okay. That’s okay. But, you know, at the end of the day, I am about results. I know a little something about hitting the numbers and really making sure that you do that. I think I’ve been blessed to create environments where the team that I’ve led through servant leadership not only hit the numbers, but exceeded the numbers. And so, I think it’s also being able to show and demonstrate to those individuals that it is not only possible to hit the numbers, but it’s also possible to exceed those. And it doesn’t require as much effort as doing it a different way.

Minter Dial: Indeed, I do like this word of engineering, because I think a lot of people tend to wish that it should fall from the tree or that it’ll just happen. This notion of clarity, intentionality is beautiful. So, I want to finish with these two taxes you talk about, the success tax and the joy tax. This is success tax, where every level of success comes with a mental, physical, and relational tax. The higher you climb, the higher the tax. How can you manage that? Not paradox, but almost conflict.

Dana Cox: It is a conflict, right? And so, it’s understanding that the tax gets paid. So, you know, I wrote that in order for people to just have the clarity that it happens. Right. And so, we talked earlier about really having the knowledge of self and being clear about what your, I’m going to say, your worldview looks like right now, right as you climb, you’re going to need to slow down and really assess the tax that you’re paid. Because there’s a cost with everything that we do. For me, it was. I was giving myself a hard time for leaving at 5 o’ clock. As if I was leaving early. I wasn’t leaving early. I was leaving at 5 o’ clock to attend a sporting event for one of my children So, I could be fully present for them. Right. And be the parent and the supporter of them in their pursuit. But there was a guilt that I was feeling for leaving at 5 o’ clock and feeling as if I was doing something wrong. And oftentimes that’s the case. Or we’re in the stands and we’re still checking email on the work device or we’re doing it at the dinner table.

Minter Dial: Or not being present.

Dana Cox: Not being present. And I just think that it’s really important to assess, as you want to grow your career, what is the price you’re willing to pay in your relationships and things of that nature. Because you need to be aware of what you’re willing to pay So, that you can understand what boundaries you need to create around your significant relationships in your life So, that you can know how you’re going to show up in the workplace.

Minter Dial: Yeah. I often say, are you prepared to pay the price for what you actually wish for? For. All right, let’s finish on a joyful note because you are the queen of joy here. The joy tax. You wrote well, well, queen. When was the last time you felt pure, unfiltered joy? How can we bring back more joy into work? I mean, laughter out loud, you know, show your, your teeth as you, as you laugh. That kind of meanness, you know, as in me. How can we bring back. Reclaim more joy at work?

Dana Cox: So, one of the things that I used to do with my team was we celebrated successes with the dance break. And anyone, anyone could call for a dance break. Like, I just had a great call with this customer and we. You pick a song and we dance for two minutes. Nothing crazy, but it was a way to just kind of get us, us up and moving and celebrating the small wins. The wins don’t have to be huge, they don’t have to be large in order to be celebrated, but taking time to celebrate even the smallest of things. And it doesn’t have to be anything crazy. And that’s when I had a smaller team. There was like four of us, but that was something that we did and it brought us joy. And the people that sat around us would like, look at us like we were crazy. The. When we first started doing it, but then they started joining in, which I loved. We used to also, as my team got bigger, I’m like, okay, can’t can’t be dancing all the time. But. But we had a week day that we would come together and we would pull positivity cards and those were our, our focus for the week and we would share what, what the sentiment on the card was. And when we were having moments where someone needed what we had on our card, it was like, oh, it sounds like you need a little bit of this. And we would just encourage and support each other, but it allowed us to one be human but also find a way to be joyful in. In the things that we were doing. Because not every customer is easy. Really. Not every customer is easy. And they’re not necessarily a joy. And not every person that you work with is. Is a joy. Joy on a regular basis. But they are humans and you know, it allows you to be a little more empathetic to who they are and what they may be going through. I also think just taking time with each other outside of work in finding a way to give back, take that time as a team, as an organization to rally around giving joy outside of yourselves, outside of your work environment as a way to bond with one another, but also pay it forward to other individuals.

Minter Dial: I, I really appreciate that you came back to that thought you had mentioned a little bit earlier.

Dana Cox: Yeah.

Minter Dial: And the parallel I wanted to break. Well, I mean, obviously some sort of performance freaks. No time for any of that. That’s personal. Work isn’t personal. You just got to do the shit yet. So, I spend a lot of time in the world of sports in a game called Padel in the United States it’s called Padel. It’s a thriving sport outside of the United States in particular, although it is coming to the US So, watch this space. But I interview for my Joy of Padel podcast professional players. It’s not at all at the level of tennis in terms of money, but it’s getting there. And, and what I and it has to be played as. As doubles. So, what’s been interesting is to explore women playing and men playing and. And how do they create that synergy. The team, this couple dancing in a padel court. And it. And, and there it’s not my words, their words is the off the court is more important for the women than it is for the men. And not intending to be at all sexist. The notion of allowing for personal in the professional space a for me is what one of my books is all about. But also takes more time. It’s more messy, it’s more complicated, but ultimately it’s much more powerful and Bonding. So, it’s a hard equation to deal with. And, and I think that I, my observation is that women tend to know how to do it better than men.

Dana Cox: I think it’s, you know, part of our makeup. Right. I think women are natural nurturers. But it also goes back to that, what’s demonstrated for us right. As we are in our upbringing. We see a lot of times mothers are the primary caregivers. They’re the ones that are nurturing not just the child, but also the family as a whole. I think nowadays we’re seeing more fathers be involved in nurturing and caretaking and things of that nature. So, I, I am hopeful that you will start to see a transition there. But I do think, just because it’s a natural part of a woman’s DNA to be a nurturer of those that are around her, I think that is where it really comes from. From.

Minter Dial: I feel like I’m getting into sticky waters because we have this nature and nurture and yes, you know, it was done 20,000 years ago. Does that mean it’s okay or even allowable today? But we’re going to park that conversation. Dana, it’s been great having you on. Thank you for sharing your story, your books. Let find, tell people how people can reach you, understand more about what you do for your work as well as of course, of course, getting your books and you also have a worksheet workbook as well.

Dana Cox: Yeah. So, you can find me@danalcox.com you can find the books there, other resources, courses and things of that nature. You also can book me to speak on my website, but you can also find me on LinkedIn and Instagram as well. So, I would love to connect with, with, with your listeners for sure and continue the conversation.

Minter Dial: Beautiful. The conversation is what it’s all about as far as I’m concerned. Dana, been great having you on. Thank you So, much.

Dana Cox: Thank you.