Paycheck to Boss: How Dana L. Cox Is Teaching Women to Buy Businesses and Own Their Future

By Jules Lavallee

Dana L. Cox is a powerhouse speaker, author, and FIX Coaching & Consulting founder. With over two decades of leadership experience, she specializes in helping ambitious women achieve extraordinary success without sacrificing their personal lives. Her mission is clear—empower high-achieving women to get positioned, promoted, and paid while living lives that align with their values and well-being.

Her journey is one of resilience and reinvention. As a mother of seven and a grandmother, Dana climbed the corporate ladder from Administrative Assistant to Global Executive at Mastercard. She built a thriving career while juggling school drop-offs, late-night feedings, and boardroom meetings—proving that motherhood and ambition are not mutually exclusive.

But success came at a cost. After years of pushing herself to the brink, Dana burned out. She was exhausted, overweight, and stuck in a cycle that wasn’t serving her. That’s when she made some of the boldest moves of her life:

• Lost 142 pounds
• Left a 33-year marriage
• Walked away from a high-level corporate career to build a business

Instead of settling for burnout and stress as the price of success, she flipped the script and built FIX Coaching & Consulting. where she now helps women do the same. Her work is not about motivation—it’s about proven strategies to create real, lasting change.

Join Dana’s Free Live Training “Buy A Business Already Making Money” on July 26th, 8AM PST/10AM CT/11 AM EST www.positionedtoown.com

Overview:
This session unpacks the overlooked wealth-building strategy hiding in plain sight: small business acquisition. With over $10 trillion in business assets set to change hands as Baby Boomers retire, professionals have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to step into ownership, without having to start from zero.

You empower high-achieving women to get positioned, promoted, and paid. Tell us about FIX Coaching & Consulting. What are some of the challenges women entrepreneurs are facing today??

FIX Coaching & Consulting exists because I got tired of watching brilliant women shrink to fit into spaces that were never designed for them. FIX stands for Focused and Intentional Execution, because strategy without soul is another form of performance.

We're addressing a crisis that goes beyond the glass ceiling. Today's women entrepreneurs are navigating the "Triple Threat": overlooked, underpaid, and overwhelmed. They're building businesses while battling imposter syndrome, raising families while raising capital, and trying to scale while barely surviving.

Here's what I'm seeing:

The Visibility Paradox: Women are doing exceptional work but staying invisible. They're allergic to self-promotion, waiting to be "discovered" instead of strategically positioning themselves. They have a million-dollar value with minimum-wage visibility.

The Worthiness Wound: Even women running successful businesses struggle to charge their worth. They overdeliver and underinvoice, treating their expertise like a favor instead of an asset. One client was billing $500 for work worth $5,000, not because she lacked skill but because she lacked belief.

The Authority Gap: Women are building businesses but not building a legacy. They're so busy working IN their business, they never work ON it. They're creating jobs for themselves, not enterprises that can run without them.

The Burnout Blueprint: They've internalized that exhaustion equals excellence. They're trying to build empires on empty, believing the rest is reserved for the retired. They're succeeding at everything except sustaining themselves.

At FIX, we don't just address symptoms; we rewire the operating system. We teach women to stop asking for permission and start asking for equity, to stop competing and start collaborating, to stop building from burnout and start building from brilliance.

The real challenge isn't capability, it's conditioning. These women don't need more credentials; they need deprogramming from a success model that was never meant to sustain them. That's the real work we do.

You are a notable Keynote Speaker. Tell us about your topics.

Honestly, I live for the room.

There's something powerful about standing in front of five or five hundred people and witnessing the shift, the nods, the deep exhales, the moment someone catches a new vision for who they are and what's possible. That's why I do it—not for the spotlight but for the spark, the service, the sacred exchange.

I don't take the stage to perform. I take it to pour into others, to be used, and to leave people better than I found them, with something tangible they can carry into their next meeting, decision, or version of themselves.

My speaking is rooted in my lived experience, corporate track record, and my mission to help high-achievers lead, earn, and live with more clarity, confidence, and ownership. My most requested keynotes include:

• Positioned to Paid™: How to own your value, elevate your voice, and build a brand that gets you seen, trusted, and well paid.
• Rewrite the Rules: Build a life, career, and legacy that loves you back, without burning out or performing your way to the top.
• From Burnout to Badass: Reclaim energy, purpose, and power in high-pressure environments.
• The Power of Presence: Increase influence, credibility, and executive presence without saying a word.
• The F.I.X.™ Method: A practical framework for high-achievers who want strategy, structure, and sustainable success.
• Influence & Impact Lab: A hands-on experience to strengthen visibility, voice, and leadership in high-stakes spaces.

What is next?

2025 is the year we scale the revolution. I'm thrilled to announce I'll be featured on Fintech TV with Vince Molinari. This game-changing platform reaches the leaders and innovators who need this message. Vince's influence in the New York finance and fintech ecosystem makes this partnership particularly powerful for reaching women in financial services who are ready to transition from employee to owner.

Beyond that visibility catalyst, here's what's launching:

• Business Credit and Broker Training courses Q3
• Writing a new book on business acquisition
• Creating a supportive community
• Launching the "Positioned to Own" YouTube channel
• Closing 3–5 more acquisitions and creating partnership opportunities, and
• Curating the anthology Still Ours for parents experiencing child loss
  

www.danalcox.com