Donna Fox: I am fantastic and I am so delighted to be here. It is such an honor to be interviewed by you, Ralph.
Ralph Zuranski: Donna, I’ve always been impressed with just how hard you work and the many things that you do. Do you think it would be possible just to share with the listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Donna Fox: I would love to. I’ve always found it fascinating to hear the story behind the public story of the mentors and the heroes in my life. So I’m happy to share. Ask away.
Ralph Zuranski: Well Donna you know there are a lot of good questions. It’s a real thrill for me to be here asking you these questions. A lot of these questions come from the work of Napoleon Hill who had the opportunity to ask a lot of very rich and famous people how they were able to attain the success that they did in their lifetime. So the first question that I wanted to ask you is what do you want out of life in ten words or less?
Donna Fox: My goal in life is really to live every day with child-like abandon. You know how children just see such freshness and newness everywhere they look and in everything that they see? I really try to capture that youthfulness and that innocence every day, just the happiness and the ability to take pleasure in seeing an ant on a blade of grass.
Ralph Zuranski: That really is good to be able to have that innocence to be able to see the things that are going on around you and living in the present. What is your dream or the vision that sets the course of your life?
Donna Fox: I actually have really very simple dreams. I don’t have a big grandiose dream. I don’t dream of a huge house or really effecting thousands of people’s lives or changing the world or ending poverty. Those things would be nice.
Donna Fox: My kind of dream life is very simple. It’s waking up, eating healthy foods and having a healthy lifestyle full of activity. It’s yoga in the morning, swimming in the afternoon. It’s living in some place warm. It’s having friends over for dinner. It’s really just very simple and very basic. It’s about enjoying people and relationships and living in the moment.
Ralph Zuranski: That is really a wonderful way to live life with exercise, good food, and good friends. How important is it to stay focused on your primary goal?
Donna Fox: I think even more important than the primary goal is to stay focused on the reason why. Sometimes our goals change, and even our primary goal changes over time.
Donna Fox: But usually the reason why you want to achieve the goal doesn’t change. Now whether that be so you can take care of your parents when they need it or your children or you can send your grandkids to college or whatever that goal be for you and it’s different for everyone. The big “why” is the thing that doesn’t change. That is what is really important to keep in your narrow sights.
Ralph Zuranski: You know Donna, I’ve done a lot of interviews with a lot of the male heroes that I’m met on the internet and it’s funny but it’s rare that men have the ability to communicate as well as women do.
Ralph Zuranski: One of the things that I think the women just excel men in is their ability to follow their hunches and intuition. Do you follow your hunches and intuition?
Donna Fox: I was never very good at this until recently. I am actually very kind of left-brain and focused. I like facts and figures and numbers.
Donna Fox: As we sit here talking it’s 2006. One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2005 was to listen to my intuition more and really trust my gut when making a decision and check it. Every major business decision I kind of checked and said, “How does this feel?” In my inexperienced way that’s how I have checked my intuition. “Now how does this feel?”
Donna Fox: I must say 2005 was the best year so far and I can only imagine that 2006 is going to get better.
Ralph Zuranski: I think intuition is an area that a lot of people don’t really trust but it’s an incredibly important area because it becomes a part of your body and brain working together and telling you the stuff that you really need to hear. What type of specific philosophy or philosophies guides your life?
Donna Fox: One of the many philosophies that I live by and continually practice is the Japanese philosophy of kaizen. It’s actually a manufacturing term. It is continuing small little incremental improvements and how when you measure something in your life, just a teeny little bit, eventually all those improvements add up.
Donna Fox: So I really spend every day going, “What little thing can I do to improve myself, to improve my relationships, to improve my business today? Just one little thing.” It’s amazing what one little thing will do. Everybody has time for one little thing. One little bitty improvement every day makes such a tremendous difference in the long run.
Ralph Zuranski: What is your perspective on goodness, ethics, and moral behavior? I know that’s a real important question in the world today where everything seems to be expedient and whatever feels good just do it.
Ralph Zuranski: There doesn’t seem to be any absolutes as far as what is good or bad or whatever. It seems that a lot of times the only sin is getting caught at doing something that is wrong. What do you think about that?
Donna Fox: That’s interesting, Ralph. A couple of years ago I took a values quiz and there were 30 or so values on a sheet of paper. We were told to pick out the 15 that were the most important to us.
Donna Fox: So we automatically crossed off 30 from the list and then we had to go backwards and we asked ourselves the question, “What one value could you live without if you had to” and cross it off.
Donna Fox: You got all the way down and you basically put in reverse orders from your value. It’s like if you had to live without a value, which one is it going to be?
Donna Fox: Well, if I had guessed my values I would have said my values were education and family and fun, maybe. But I was so surprised to learn that my values were ethics and integrity. Those were my top two values, and I had no idea. But those were the ones that I couldn’t get rid of if I had to get rid of everything else.
Donna Fox: I had to get rid of my family. Ultimately it came down to who I was, my ethics and my integrity. That’s the primary value that I have and I try to do everything from a position of, “How do I feel about myself after this action?”
Donna Fox: I don’t like the idea of somebody else giving me his rules or somebody else telling me what to do. When it comes to morals and ethics I don’t think there are black and whites. There are always times when things are going to be different for people but if I check with myself and follow a code and make sure that I’m always consistent with myself, then I’m being the best person I can be. The best person I know how to be.
Ralph Zuranski: What place does prayer have in your life? I know a lot of people try to tune into the spiritual or the entity that is God to them. Do you pray and how important is prayer for you?
Donna Fox: I’m not a particularly religious person, Ralph. That being said, I think you could call what I do prayer, by some people’s definitions.
Donna Fox: I really make a conscious effort to think every day about the things I am grateful for in my life and the wonderful things that have come into my life. And to be sure that I am open for more wonderful things to come into my life.
Donna Fox: If positive thinking and gratitude is prayer then I am all for it. I think it’s highly important to do it every single day.
Ralph Zuranski: In the world today there are a lot of people who give their lives for what they do. Firemen rush into burning houses; police men put their lives on the line. What are the things you would be willing to sacrifice your life for?
Donna Fox: That question really touches me. I think if I were a mother it would be a very easy answer. I would sacrifice my life for my children.
Donna Fox: To some extent I feel like I would sacrifice my life for my family members, my fiancé, the people that I love, and my business partner. But who really knows when it comes down to it, and when you are really asked to give your life?
Donna Fox: I would love to be able to say, “I would sacrifice my life for free speech” because I think it is so important. I would sacrifice my life for the freedoms that our country provides us. But who really knows. I should hope that I could live up to that. But I also hope that I never get tested on it.
Ralph Zuranski: That is so true. You never know what you are going to do. You hope that you do the right thing but when that moment shows up it’s hard to say what we would do.
Ralph Zuranski: A lot of people have given their lives and sometimes you just wonder, “Gee, would I have the courage and the ability to do so?” I really appreciate your perspective on that. I was just curious. Are your goals consistent with your beliefs?
Donna Fox: The first answer that comes to mind is, “I don’t know how my goals could be inconsistent with my beliefs.” I don’t know if I would set a goal that was inconsistent with my beliefs.
Donna Fox: But as I think a little bit further I realize that I have some goals that I can’t imagine accomplishing. And if I can’t envision it then I do not believe it. So I guess I do have some goals that are inconsistent with my beliefs.
Donna Fox: Not from an ethical or moral standpoint but because I’m not big enough for them yet. They are bigger than me right now. They are there. I guess the process of growing as an individual is growing into your big, hairy, audacious goals.
Ralph Zuranski: That is so true what Earl Nightingale had to say was that people pursue a worthy ideal with excellence and honesty and integrity and that you have to get to the point where you are providing or producing a quality product or service that is so valuable to society and others that you experience the rewards that you have sought out for.
Ralph Zuranski: I know that you are experiencing a lot of rewards now and I am confident that you follow that particular pathway. I know the Dale Carnegie secret that was given to Napoleon Hill. A lot of these questions come from the same questions that he asked some of the leaders of his time. Are your actions consistent with your beliefs?
Donna Fox: Not at all. Every single day I step out on a limb. You have to go out on a limb because that’s where the fruit is. Every single day I do something that scares me.
Donna Fox: There are days that I wake up and this whole business of being an entrepreneur is terrifying. At the same time I can’t imagine doing anything else right now.
Donna Fox: When I think about going back to a job it crushes my spirit. So no, my actions aren’t consistent with my belief because I act every day in spite of my limiting beliefs.
Ralph Zuranski: That is so true to actually get out there where the fruit actually hangs does take some risk. It is a little scary. How valuable is it to have highly charged emotions about the things that you are achieving?
Donna Fox: I think emotions are invaluable. Sometimes they get in the way. Sometimes fear, sometimes anxiety. Those are all negative emotions that get in the way.
Donna Fox: Emotions move us more than a to-do list. If there wasn’t emotion behind a to-do list we wouldn’t get anything done. But it’s emotions that drive us towards something.
Donna Fox: It’s because we want to attain something. It’s because we want the emotions of pleasure and success and happiness. And emotions drive us away from something.
Donna Fox: They drive us away from fear and loneliness and poverty and hunger. Without that emotional response I think we would be much less effective as people. So they are absolutely, super, highly, highly important. And I don’t just say that because I’m an emotional woman.
Ralph Zuranski: Everybody who goes through life suffers misfortunes, setbacks, and they make mistakes. How important is it to take a positive view of the mistakes and misfortunes and problems that we have during our lifetime?
Donna Fox: I can tell you that I have spent a lot of money at the University of Adversity over the years. Those lessons from life’s little lessons, the hard ones that you pay with your pocket book or you pay with your pride are critical, really.
Donna Fox: I don’t think that we change as individuals or we progress as businesses without the adversities thrown in. I don’t think we improve without the road blocks. The trick is to figure out which things are actually adversities that we need to then react to and what are what I call obstacle illusions because they are not real. They are just fears that get in the way.
Donna Fox: Once you master the real adversity from the obstacle illusions then you have found your key to grow as a person.
Ralph Zuranski: Just about all the motivators and professional speakers tell you that you should have a positive attitude and that you should have optimism. Do you think that it’s important to have optimism and a positive attitude?
Donna Fox: I think optimism is important. I also think that pessimism and realism are important. Any time you have too much of anything you put life out of balance.
Donna Fox: It’s good to have optimism because it’s what gets you through the rough times. It’s good to have pessimism because it keeps you grounded and most of the time it’s good to have realism so you are aware of all of the influences everywhere. So yes, I think optimism is equally as important as pessimism.
Ralph Zuranski: Everybody has problems in their lives. Sometimes they can be crushing, the sorrow they create of just the overwhelming feeling that people have. Do you think it’s important to maintain a sense of humor in the face of difficulties?
Donna Fox: I think that sometimes humor is the only thing that we can fall back on in sad times. My father passed away a couple of years ago and I felt driven, something I had to do, was to give some remarks at his funeral. You probably don’t know this, Ralph, but I have a terrible fear of public speaking. I’m a speaker, but I face that fear because I also love to teach and I love to educate, motivate and inspire people.
Donna Fox: At my father’s funeral I decide that I want to motivate and inspire people. He was just a great man in his simple way. Like many fathers he started in the Boy Scouts when my brother was young.
Donna Fox: But unlike many fathers he stayed for 40 years and really devoted much of his life to influencing and guiding young boys and men to grow up into really amazing adults.
Donna Fox: He gave so much to so many. He was a teacher. I’m a seminar speaker and a trainer and a teacher, and I like to think that I’m following in my dad’s footsteps. He was a teacher, too.
Donna Fox: At his funeral I decided that I wanted to deliver a humorous presentation. We actually closed the event with me mustering up the best courage I could with my fear of public speaking and all of the emotion that went into the day and delivered a humorous speech about my father.
Donna Fox: People still talk about it today. It’s the humor in times of sadness that provides the optimism, really, to go back to the last question. It provides the optimism.
Donna Fox: You kind of face the Murphy’s Law and you face the sad times in life but there is a glimpse of hope and future in humor. Laughter is the best medicine. It sure is.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you invest time in daydreaming about what your life will be in the future?
Donna Fox: Not as much as you might think. I am actually really happy with my life. I am really happy with my day-to-day life. Sure, I have goals that I would like to achieve but I think once you reach a level that you are comfortable with you stop wishing and dreaming.
Donna Fox: Now there was a time in my life that I was constantly striving for something else, and it’s not even what I have now. It was just something different from what I had then.
Donna Fox: I think once you reach a point where you are not striving any more and you find a place where you fit, then sure, you think about the future and you think about your goals and you hope for them, but you don’t dwell on them or daydream about them in the say way because you don’t need the escapism any more.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you feel it’s important to make positive statements about your future goals and just your future dreams and put them in a positive perspective?
Donna Fox: I do think it’s important to keep your dreams and your goals, specifically statements about them like incantations about them. Tony Robbins said, “Even more powerful than affirmations is incantations.”
Donna Fox: If you say something rhythmically and you add body motion so you have the audio, you have a visual maybe in your head, and you add a body motion to it so you have a kinesthetic component as well.
Donna Fox: Now if you get them all together it’s total body learning. The only slight tweak, Ralph, is you said positive statements about your future goals. I like to make positive statements about my present conditions, even if it’s not my present reality at the time. If every cell in my being starts to believe it, then it has to come true.
Ralph Zuranski: I know a lot of people aren’t very in touch with their subconscious mind but the subconscious mind seems to have a tremendous power in our lives to manifest the things that we desire and achieve the goals that we are looking to accomplish. Do you take time out to feed your subconscious mind?
Donna Fox: This is a great question because I do this all the time. I’ll give you an example. Just last week I was doing an event at a seminar at a hotel and the hotel manager, who was handling our account, we came to heads.
Donna Fox: We had a disagreement and I was angry, I was fired up. I’m a little bit Italian so when I get angry I get really angry. So I’m irate and I’m storming around and I snapped on some poor couple who said that the seminar room was cold.
Donna Fox: I snapped on them and I thought, “I have to walk away.” I walked away and then I thought I’m just going to take all this anger and put it here in my hand. I held my hand out and kind of cupped it open so that all this anger is sitting right here in my hand.
Donna Fox: I felt the anger move from my body and land in my hand and I thought, you know how easy it is when you have something really heavy in your hand and it’s a burden? You just tip your hand a little bit and let it go.
Donna Fox: With that I tipped my hand and I threw my anger into the garbage can. That quickly it was gone. It was gone from my body and it was gone from my day. My conscious mind is saying that is just silly. But my unconscious mind got rid of the anger. So I do stuff like that all the time to keep me going. It’s amazing how quickly you can change your perspective. It’s not enough to say, “I have to get over it.” You have to actually go through the ritual.
Ralph Zuranski: I know a lot of people are paralyzed by fear and they are afraid to do things or make changes in their life. A lot of times they are actually constrained by the people that are a part of their peer group.
Ralph Zuranski: They know if they make any changes that they are going to be rejected and they are going to go ahead and suffer a certain amount of punishment from their family and friends. Do you think that it takes courage to pursue new ideas?
Donna Fox: There is no question that it takes courage to pursue new ideas. Not one single question in my mind.
Donna Fox: But courage isn’t the absence of fear. Courage is preceding forwards in the face of and in spite of fears. It is said that you are most like the five people you hang out with, so if you want to improve yourself hang out with better people.
Donna Fox: The natural consequence of that is that it leaves the old five people behind, and it’s kind of sad. If you think about it, to think that I might leave the five people that are closest to me behind as I grow it is very, very sad.
Donna Fox: But you can’t bring them with you. They have to come on their own. What I have found as I move through these people as I grow and friends come in and out of my life. Like my friends from high school. I don’t talk to any of them any more. I still love them all dearly but they aren’t close friends any longer. They have moved out of my life.
Donna Fox: People move in and out of your life at all times. But what I have found is that the people who are moving in my life are always really amazing and really interesting and fascinating people.
Donna Fox: Some of them can move onto the next level with me, and that is what you really hope for. You hope to find those people who can continue to be the five people in your life that you would most like to be like.
Ralph Zuranski: Are you willing to experience the discomfort in the pursuit of your dreams that occurs when you have to make those changes and leave those people behind? I know a lot of people they are just trapped in their relationships and they can’t get out. How do you get out of the relationships or how do you deal with that because I know it is sorrowful, not only for you as a person but also the people that you do have to leave behind.
Donna Fox: It’s a great question and I would love to say I had some kind of magical system that I use or way of looking at it. But frankly, Ralph, what I found is mostly I don’t notice.
Donna Fox: Just all of a sudden I realize, “Hey, I haven’t spoken to this person in a while” and realize that I’ve moved on or maybe they have moved on. Who knows, maybe we’ve each moved on in different directions.
Donna Fox: But when we get caught up in our day to day activities sometimes those big changes we don’t notice. They are big changes for the good or sometimes big changes for the worst.
Donna Fox: I know we’ve all had the experience where suddenly we are ten pounds heavier than we used to be and we certainly didn’t see them going on ounce by ounce. So I don’t really notice that loss enough to be able to comment on the occurrence of it.
Ralph Zuranski: One of the big problems that a lot of people have is procrastination. They just procrastinate and procrastinate. We meet a lot of them at these seminars where they buy these big packages for a lot of money and when they get home the just set them on the shelf and never open them ever to do anything. Do you think that it’s important and valuable to make decisions quickly?
Donna Fox: I think that it is definitely a major success principle to be decisive in nature. Quickly is relative. You might decide what you want from a restaurant menu in 15 seconds and that could be quick.
Donna Fox: You might take a minute and that would still be quick to some people. You might decide about moving into a new home and making a decision about a home. That could take months.
Donna Fox: So “quickly” is relative. I think what is most important is to decide and if, as you are listening to this, you are having trouble making decisions in your life, start with the small ones. Start making decisions with a menu.
Donna Fox: Sit down and say, “I’m only going to look at this menu for 30 seconds” and then make a decision. Just force yourself to make decisions that don’t matter because ultimately most decisions in life really don’t matter. They are small things.
Donna Fox: What’s that book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff? Being decisive does help.
Donna Fox: You also asked about procrastination and I have found the key to overcoming procrastination, because you are right, we all do it. We all procrastinate, especially we internet marketers because it’s so easy to start our day and start reading email and the next thing we know we are surfing the web and reading people’s blogs.
Donna Fox: All of those things are valuable things to do but they don’t build out business’s bottom line. I took a tip from Brian Tracy. He has a book called Eat That Frog. What he says is if you have a number of frogs to eat, if you take the biggest, ugliest frog first then all the other frogs seem easier. I like to call that concept “kiss the frog” which is a bit more palatable and sometimes when you kiss the frog you get a prince.
Donna Fox: So each day I have my frogs and I line up four or five frogs each day that are the things I will most likely procrastinate on. But I try to make them things that generate revenue for my business, that actually move me forward.
Donna Fox: If I take the biggest, ugliest one that I am most likely to procrastinate on and get at that first thing in the morning before I open an email, before I do just about anything other than drink some coffee, suddenly my whole day is better because I have got something done right away.
Donna Fox: It’s just that simple restructuring of my day, making it the first thing that I do, that makes all the difference. Again, it’s back to that idea of little tiny improvements, kaizen.
Donna Fox: My friend would call it the butterfly effect. How one little thing that you can do right now can make a tremendous difference in the future. It also makes a tremendous difference in procrastination.
Ralph Zuranski: It sounds like you make decisions fairly fast but take a fair amount of time deciding and making sure that you do make a good decision. You never know what the outcome of the decisions is. I guess that’s the weird thing about decisions. You don’t know which way they are going to turn. We see so many people that vacillate. They are making decisions, changing their mind, making decisions, changing their mind. How slow do you revise or reverse important decisions that you make?
Donna Fox: Gosh, such a great question! I like to think that I can recognize when I’m being fearful of a decision that I’ve made the wrong decision versus knowing that I’ve made the wrong decision. But who really knows?
Donna Fox: I think it’s important to have flexibility. Thankfully, as internet marketers, we have a lot of flexibility built into our lifestyle. We have this phrase in our business where we start to vacillate abut a decision. We simply say, “It’s testable.” That is ultimately what it is about.
Donna Fox: Who cares if I have made the right decision? It’s more important that I have made a decision to go forward. And if I want to question the decision, in most cases it’s something that I can test and let the market decide who is right.
Ralph Zuranski: I think everybody in their lives faces doubts and fears. I think that is a common fate of mankind to doubt themselves and also just a fear of just about everything.
Ralph Zuranski: It seems that the media, TV, radio, newspapers, everything that you see is based upon the concept that if it bleeds it leads. That’s why I created the heroes program to spread good news at a grassroots level. How do you overcome your doubts and fears?
Donna Fox: Frankly I overcome them by giving into them. Every once in awhile I just let myself break down. I let myself feel all of the anxiety. I let myself be that scared little girl that is still inside me.
Donna Fox: By letting myself feel it, giving a nod to that side of myself, allows me to not repress those feelings every other time. Then every other time I can focus on the good feelings and focus on moving forward despite those fears.
Donna Fox: I really think sometimes you just need a good cry. You just need to hide under the covers. I’ve spent days under the covers just because the world seemed too scary and too big. I probably do this every five or six weeks. I will spend a day under the covers because that side of me needs it.
Donna Fox: Now you need to nurture all the sides. You need to nurture the positives but you kind of need to nurture the fears, too, because remember, we move toward positive things but we also move away from the fears.
Donna Fox: So it’s really important to acknowledge that they are there because we remember what is pushing us.
Ralph Zuranski: Seems that in life, and also in business, that we can’t be successful unless we have other people in our lives. Ultimately success, if you are marketing something, is understanding what your customers want and trying to get inside their head and see what it is that they do want and provide a product or service that provides them the value that is not only the solution to the problem they have but provides them real great value.
Ralph Zuranski: I know in the process of working with people either we do or other people do they upset, offend and oppose us. How important do you feel forgiveness is?
Donna Fox: I think forgiveness is really kind of crucial to my business sanity. I have had those moments where just recently somebody is infringing on one of my trademarks. That is huge! I am angry with that person.
Donna Fox: But I’ve come to forgive them and it’s relatively recent. It’s still going on and he is still infringing on my trademark even now as we speak. But forgiveness is important for me, not for him. He doesn’t care if I forgive him. He really doesn’t.
Donna Fox: It’s kind of the process of letting go of the anger, letting go of the hurt. When I got started I used to get mad at people who opted out of my list! Now I rejoice in it.
Donna Fox: Now I look at it as good. I don’t want somebody who doesn’t want me. So it’s just a process that we go through where we get these little small hurts and then we realize that they are just that, small hurts, and we don’t have to be hurt by them.
Donna Fox: So we kind of forgive them globally. I have forgiven everyone who ever will in the future opt out of my list. It’s just not a hurt any longer. I think it helps us grow to be able to forgive but if I was still now, years after starting being an internet marketer, getting upset every time somebody opted out of my list, I wouldn’t move forward.
Donna Fox: Forgiveness really helps us learn from an experience and take the next steps forward.
Ralph Zuranski: That is kind of an interesting perception. I don’t think I ever got mad at the people who opted out of my list, I was just thankful that somebody opted in. Do you experience service to others as a source of joy?
Donna Fox: My service to others is education and enlightenment. There is no joy like seeing the “aha” in somebody’s eyes, especially when you are not so much educating but actually trying to transform and have an emotional experience for the light bulb to go on, for the click, for the eureka moment, for the aha, or whatever you want to call it.
Donna Fox: But when you see the clarity in the eyes of your audience or your student or your mentor, it is that which is about the most rewarding thing that I can think of. That’s what keeps me going in this business, no question.
Ralph Zuranski: A lot of people go through life and have a lot of trials and tribulations. Some of people never survive an event that occurred in their lives. Their whole life becomes about that one failure or that one injury or that one thing that somebody did to them. When was the lowest point in your life and how did you change your life to one of victory?
Donna Fox: There have been quite a few low points in my life. I’ll just work reverse chronologically until you decide to stop me because it’s too depressing. As early as two years ago I had just published a book From Credit Repair to Credit Millionaire and I was broke. I had left my job in 2001 to start a business and I had some savings.
Donna Fox: My ultimate goal was to start a business and go back to work but then September 11th happened, the marketplace changed, and when it was time for me to go back to work there were just no jobs available in my field.
Donna Fox: So I decided to keep working on my business a little big more and that is actually when I started and got involved in the internet and got involved in speaking and training and found that I loved it.
Donna Fox: But at that time, right when I had published that book, I hadn’t had income for two and a half years. Not a dime in income for two and a half years. I was living on credit cards, Ralph. I was literally living on cash advances on credit cards and shuffling them around, and almost ironically practicing my credit millionaire strategies to keep my head above water while I’m trying to build a business teaching other people how to make millions of dollars by borrowing money.
Donna Fox: So there is just this very interesting time in my life where I struggled with feelings that I was a fraud. Who was I to tell people about wealth building when I have $40,000 in credit card debt because I’ve been living off them for years?
Donna Fox: Then I realized that is exactly why I am the right person because I’m teaching people about how to use credit. I may have $40,000 in credit card debt but it’s basically business debt because it’s money that I was essentially paying to myself as a salary.
Donna Fox: I could have loaned it to my business and then paid myself a salary if I wanted to do it that way. It’s kind of hard to think about the low points because after you get over them you tend to find the positive in them. Another low point in my life was right after I graduated from law school. I was also getting a divorce.
Donna Fox: It was just a terrible time in my life. My husband and I loved each other so much but we just could not be married. It turns out we never really should have been married. We should have just been friends.
Donna Fox: Now he is a great friend of mine. We are practically best friends. But at that time it was so low and I felt scared because I had just gotten out of law school, I didn’t have a job so I was job hunting, I was going to be alone, I had tremendous debt over my head from my student loans, and yea, there were days when I hid under the covers.
Donna Fox: It was just a tremendous low point, but it passed. If it doesn’t kill you it will make you stronger. It made me stronger.
Donna Fox: The last one I want to talk about is not something I have ever said publicly before, ever. So this is a first. It’s a first for In Search of Heroes.
Donna Fox: I got pregnant when I was 16 and in high school. I first thought about an abortion but that didn’t feel right. Remember I said I like to check my decisions based on my feelings. Nothing felt good about that.
Donna Fox: But I had plans in life and a baby was not part of the plans. So I made the decision to give the baby up for adoption. I’m not going to get through this without crying. I went through an open adoption so I actually interviewed and picked the parents for my daughter.
Donna Fox: Probably the lowest point in my life, and the hardest thing I have ever done, was actually handing my daughter over into the arms of her new mom. I just thought the world was going to end. Nothing could be good after doing something like that.
Donna Fox: I remember it was really the way to give her the best life I possibly could and also give me a chance, because I was still a baby, too, and I needed to give myself a chance. So yea, it was a tremendously low time.
Donna Fox: As this knocked-up teenager I felt like a screw-up. You would not believe, but now because I did an open adoption and actually my daughter turns 18 this year, so there is a chance she might come back into my life.
Donna Fox: Because I’ve done an open adoption, every year I get pictures. Every year I saw this wonderful little thing that cost me so much pain, grow into this amazing individual. And I think that is what adversity in life is about. Real change doesn’t happen until there is adversity and real growth.
Donna Fox: She could go on to change the world. Maybe it’s not my job to end poverty. Maybe it’s her’s. If I hadn’t experienced that adversity, that amazing life wouldn’t have happened and I wouldn’t be who I am now. I got so much growth and so much strength from that experience. If I had just kind of skated through my high school years I don’t know if I would be here today.
Donna Fox: So gosh, yes, adversity sucks when you are in it. There is nothing worse than when you are at the life lows. But when you can look back and realize how far you have come, and you will come far because you can’t stay low. The human spirit is too strong to stay low.
Donna Fox: When you look back and think about the amazing things that have happened you just have to embrace those adversities, you have to embrace the low times in your life.
Ralph Zuranski: Donna, was there anybody that gave you the will power to change your life when you were going through all those traumas? Where did you get your strength to overcome those?
Donna Fox: I really wish that I could say there is this strong mentor in my life at those times, that there was a driving force and somebody to lean on. But I think in hard times, more than any other time, you feel alone. When I think back on those times the only person I leaned on was me. It was the only person I had the ability to lean on at that time because I felt like the only person in the world.
Donna Fox: In hindsight when I was a teenager my mother was there. She would have helped but I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t reach out. When I was going through a divorce, my family could have helped. My friends could have helped. But I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t reach out.
Donna Fox: I got a little bit better later on as I was going through financial troubles and feelings of fraud and at those times I shared those feelings with my business partner and my fiancé who mostly couldn’t understand them because they saw the me that I see now.
Donna Fox: They saw the me outside of the adversity and I think that is important to remember when you go to people to help they are going to see the positive in you because people do that. They see the positive in you.
Donna Fox: At the time when you are really low you may not be ready to hear that. So ultimately during those down times I turned to me and I still think of myself as being the only asset that I have that no one will take away from me.
Donna Fox: Really try to focus on improving “me” and building “me” and growing “me.” If I am all I have, then I still have something pretty good.
Ralph Zuranski: I know you have been very successful in the last couple of years after you overcame the credit millionaire, sort of like epiphany, that you were the right person at the right time because you were experiencing exactly what you were writing about.
Ralph Zuranski: It seems that a lot of people teach exactly what they need to know at the time that they need it and that’s why they are the best teachers because they are actually going through it at that time.
Ralph Zuranski: How important was it at that time, especially the last couple of years, to believe that your financial dreams had eventually become reality?
Donna Fox: The whole time I was really struggling to be an entrepreneur, living off of credit cards, I only looked at the job ads three times. I quickly remembered what I was running away from, the fear of being stuck in a job working a lot of grueling hours for somebody else and making a living instead of making a life.
Donna Fox: That kept me focused and it kept me motivated. So yea, I did kind of turn to the dark side and look at the want ads every once in awhile when I though it would be nice to go out for dinner once in awhile for a change.
Donna Fox: But ultimately it was that I knew that the best thing for me would be to make it successful, and in 2005, which was really a pivotal year for me, I made a decision not to renew my law license. I took away my safety net. Instead of swinging from trapezes and knowing there was a net underneath me, I took the net way and I grew tremendously.
Donna Fox: Once I was willing to get rid of that safety net and know that I had to catch the other trapeze that was coming, that there was nothing saving me but making it work and being successful. Ultimately I believe that that moment was my tipping point. At that moment I told the universe that I was serious about it, and it’s made all the difference.
Ralph Zuranski: How important is it to know exactly how much money you want to gain and by what time, to set a specific time and day for the completion of your financial goals?
Donna Fox: Goal setting is an interesting thing. I once read that people who set goals, and they set one-year goals and five-year goals and ten-year goals, they always fall short of the one-year goals. They are usually about right on with the five-year goals and they blow away their ten-year goals when the tenth year comes around. That being said, the study seemed to show that all the people that make goals are far better off than the people who don’t make goals.
Donna Fox: So I think it’s important to have a number in mind, something that you are shooting for. Whether it’s the right one, don’t get bogged down on the right one. Just decide on one so that you have something that you are moving forward to.
Donna Fox: You won’t make it in a year because we don’t make our one-year goals but we make our five-year goals and we exceed our ten-year goals as long as we set them.
Ralph Zuranski: You are one of the people that I consider one of the heroes that I met on the internet just because you always seem to have such a wonderful smile and you just seem to be a light in the world of so many people at the seminars. I was curious what is your definition of heroism?
Donna Fox: I think a hero is someone who does something that is amazing. Whether that be the tiniest little thing, if it is amazing to me then they are my hero. I try to see the hero in everyone, like see the Buda in everyone. It’s very similar.
Donna Fox: Everybody has something about them that sparkles, something about them that is incredible, and it’s just finding that gem, that little diamond inside everyone. Everybody is a hero. So that’s my definition of hero: it’s everyone.
Ralph Zuranski: When you were a young person I know that you had some major difficulties that you had to overcome, especially as you shared with us about the baby.
Ralph Zuranski: I know in my life I had a lot of problems initially as a young person. I didn’t have many friends and I read a lot of the comic books so I created my own super hero in my own mind that helped me overcome life’s difficulties.
Ralph Zuranski: Did you have any type of hero in your youth that you created? Did you have a fictional hero or somebody in your life that really helped you a lot?
Donna Fox: I have always been a huge fan of Wonder Woman. From the time that I was a little girl till now, if you go and look at my computer my desktop on my computer is a picture of Wonder Woman.
Donna Fox: I sometimes open my seminars with Wonder Woman as my opening screen, like the title screen. Where my name would be I have Wonder Woman because she’s my alter ego.
Donna Fox: Not only is she beautiful and amazingly powerful, but she has that great lasso of truth so she can always get to the bottom of things. She can always find out the ethical, the integrity, the truth in any situation.
Donna Fox: Those being my highest values I really honor the honestly of the lasso and kind of wish that I had it all through my life, to be able to have that lasso of truth.
Donna Fox: Just the concept of a wonder woman is someone that causes awe, that causes wonder, amazement, and that can be so many things. For me every mother is a Wonder Woman.
Donna Fox: I’m not a mom and I don’t deal every day with what it must be like to raise children and to have a household. I am in awe of every mother that manages to manage their business of their home as well as, in most cases in this world, some other type of job or career or business on the side.
Donna Fox: They are all wonder women to me. All women are Wonder Woman because they are all amazing.
Ralph Zuranski: That is a funny story. I know that I created my own character to overcome the adversities of life and it seemed that just by living as that character that created more adversities than it solved. But it was quite a learning experience. Donna, who are the heroes in your life now?
Donna Fox: I truly see heroes everywhere. My finance is my hero. He takes care of me. He keeps my life light. Where I am prone to be a workaholic he brings levity and simple things.
Donna Fox: My business partner is my hero. He keeps drive and motivation in me, and inspiration and brilliance. I am constantly amazed at Paulie’s brilliance. So he is one of my heroes.
Donna Fox: Ralph, you are one of my heroes for putting this site together. This program is incredible. If there is one little thing that I can say that can help inspire someone to find the hero inside them, then you are amazing. You are the hero.
Donna Fox: Everyone around me is my hero. If I can just figure out what lesson they have to teach me. That is the real trick. We have all been in this situations where we are like, “This person has nothing for me. I’m just going to get out of it.” Try to remember that they have something to teach me or they wouldn’t be in front of me.
Donna Fox: Everybody has something to teach me. I just have to figure out what it is.
Ralph Zuranski: We just talked about the heroes in your life and I totally agree that everybody has that potential hero within. One of the goals of the program is to help everybody realize that they too can be a hero as far as just helping others. That is probably one of the fastest ways to become a hero. How important is it to have trusted friends or a mastermind group?
Donna Fox: Napoleon Hill on his deathbed said that the mastermind was the key to success. It was the element, the surprise, the secret of the rich. I couldn’t agree more.
Donna Fox: Especially as internet marketers, it is so easy to stay alone in front of our computer. There is so much busy work we could be doing. But ultimately nothing really happens when you stay at home.
Donna Fox: You have to get out. You have to meet people, because people are who we learn from. We learn that we aren’t alone in our process. We learn that somebody has been through everything before.
Donna Fox: As individual as adversities may seem, and as individual as problems may seem, people go through them. People pave the way for us and we need to be out and around people constantly.
Donna Fox: One of the things, as I teach real estate investors, we are told that we need our teams: our accountants, our attorneys and lawyers. I say throw out the idea of needing a team because you already have one: the whole world is your team.
Donna Fox: Everyone out there is available to you as a team member. Most people are willing to help you if you are just willing to ask. Absolutely masterminds are the most valuable thing.
Donna Fox: When you open up your mastermind from a tiny little group to the idea that the world is your mastermind, then there isn’t anything you can’t get the answer to.
Ralph Zuranski: I really love your concept that everybody is a hero and has that hero potential. Who do you feel in our society today are the real heroes that aren’t getting the credit that they deserve or the rewards that should be given to them and just lavished upon them for the good things they are doing for others.
Donna Fox: We could be here a long time for this list. It would include teachers, parents, teenagers, mothers, single mothers, single fathers, and children. There are amazing heroes who are children out there that don’t get the attention they deserve.
Donna Fox: Now because sometimes being a hero is really just about moving forward and doing something for others and even doing something for you in the process, every child that lends a hand to another child and children can be pretty cruel. A child that is kind is a hero.
Donna Fox: Nobody rewards them. We don’t reward our police officers and our firemen, the people who are saving our lives, nearly as much as we should be. Or the pilots and the stewardesses that make airplane travel great.
Donna Fox: Or the staffs in hotels that keep the bathrooms clean for us. Or the ticket taker in the subway station. Or the people who keep the roads clean. Everyone does something to help us.
Donna Fox: We don’t realize how many people touch us all day long. There aren’t nearly enough sung heroes in this world. There are far too many unsung heroes. There are just far too many.
Ralph Zuranski: I do love your perspective on heroes, Donna, and it’s my same perspective, too. I wanted to ask you why are heroes so important in the lives of young people?
Donna Fox: I think heroes are the first time when we as young people learn to think big. When a little boy puts a towel around his neck and pretends to be Superman it’s the first time he is thinking beyond his abilities. He is hoping to be something amazing and incredible.
Donna Fox: When we start little with the heroes in our imagination, and now we are talking about heroes in the traditional sense, the people who are truly amazing or super heroes, they teach us to stretch.
Donna Fox: When we talk about heroes in our sense of it that everybody is a hero it’s really important for us to be heroes for children because they need to learn how to be adults.
Donna Fox: Everyone will teach them, so it’s important we know what they are teaching them.
Ralph Zuranski: What are the things that parents can do that will help their children realize that they too can be heroes and make a positive difference in the world today?
Donna Fox: I think that the best thing that a parent can do is to realize that they are communicating even when they are not talking, and it’s not the messages that we give to our children directly but indirectly that make the most impact.
Donna Fox: Kids are so smart. Their brains are just big sponges and they are soaking up everything. They are soaking up not only what we say, but how we say it and what we do and they observe us and they model us because they want to be adults.
Donna Fox: So the best thing that a parent can do is be the person that they would like their children to grow up to be. You asked me awhile ago about who my models were, who my role models were.
Donna Fox: I think my role model is the person that I would like to be if and when my daughter decides that she wants to meet me. For the last 18 years I have been thinking about, “What will she think when she learns that her birth mother is this?” Or that her birth mother does this?
Donna Fox: I don’t consider myself a parent because parenting is so much more than giving birth. I am an egg donor, at best. An incubator. But even with that little part that I have I feel responsible for being a role model and that is my driving force.
Donna Fox: Every day I think I need to be a person that I want her to grow up to be. I want her to be proud of me. And every parent can do that. They can be the person to make their son or daughter proud. That is the best thing they can do.
Ralph Zuranski: How do people actually become heroes from your perspective?
Donna Fox: Being heroic is really about rising to an opportunity. It’s about being the right person at the right time. So people become heroes because an opportunity presents itself.
Donna Fox: Their innate heroism becomes apparent. But really all people are heroes. They are just waiting for that opportunity to show it. Some actively show it. Some recognize their own internal hero. They pursue displaying that because of what heroism is.
Donna Fox: It’s really being brave and selfless and teaching and educating and motivating. Some people see that and they strive for it and work for it. But by far most people become a hero because what is already inside of them has the opportunity to shine.
Ralph Zuranski: How does it actually feel to be recognized as a hero? I know a lot of the people that I recognized the hero capabilities within them, that when I said I wanted to interview them as a hero they didn’t say, “I’m not really a hero. I don’t really feel that I deserve to be interviewed as a hero.”
Ralph Zuranski: But over the years of the people that I have asked that said, “No,” in the intervening years they come up to me at the conferences and say, “You know, Ralph, I think I’m getting close to my heroes interview.”
Ralph Zuranski: It’s funny how somebody having a particular perspective about somebody just like in your life when they saw how special you were but you didn’t see it in yourself, that is amazing how big of a difference it has what perspective other people have about you and how important that is in helping to shape who you are and who you become.
Ralph Zuranski: So how does it actually feel to be recognized as a hero?
Donna Fox: That’s a great question Ralph. I remember when you asked me to do a Hero’s interview and I was tremendously flattered and tremendously touched.
Donna Fox: I didn’t for a moment think that I didn’t deserve it, though, because who am I to say whether or not I’m a hero. It’s not my role to decide if I’m a hero or not.
Donna Fox: You saw something in me and I love you for that. That’s great. Maybe somebody else won’t, but heroism is very personal. You may like Superman or you may like Batman. To many people Batman is nothing because he didn’t have any special powers. But he had great toys, so maybe that makes him a hero to you.
Donna Fox: The real-life heroes, not the super heroes, they are the same way. It’s very personal whether or not you decide someone is a hero or like we like to think everyone is a hero.
Donna Fox: It feels wonderful that you recognized that in me and it’s very special and I am so appreciative.
Ralph Zuranski: Why do you think I recognized you as a hero?
Donna Fox: That’s not an easy question because I truly don’t know why you asked for this interview. I could make lots of guesses. I could make lots of guesses based on things that I would like to be recognized for.
Donna Fox: You didn’t know about my adversity when you asked me, so it wasn’t that I had overcome adversity. You knew hardly anything at all about me, actually, when you asked me to be a Hero. So what I can guess you noticed is that I show up, and simply that I’m there and that I’m making an effort and hitting some balls out of the park every once in a while.
Donna Fox: That I show up to the practices and I think that’s what you noticed.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s true, but there was something else that was even more extraordinary that caused me to choose you as one of my Heroes, and it was not only just showing up to the game but showing up to the game with a specific type of attitude.
Ralph Zuranski: I don’t think I have ever been to any one of the conferences where I didn’t see you smiling and touching people and passing on good energy to the people that you re in contact with. That was one of the things that I liked about you and that I liked about Paulie, too, is that you are so involved with other people and working to make them feel better about themselves.
Ralph Zuranski: So you are going around and helping people to become heroes just in the process by doing what you do. Not only do you show up but you show up with a great attitude and that makes all the difference in the world. How will being recognized as an internet hero change your life?
Donna Fox: I’ve always wanted a cool title. Now there was a time in my life when I wanted to have business cards printed up that said, “Donna Fox, Intellectual Gumshoe.” I thought that would be a great title.
Donna Fox: But now I can have business cards that say, “Donna Fox, Hero” and how cool is that?
Donna Fox: Jokes aside, I think that it’s a tremendous honor to be recognized as one of your heroes. But with all do respect, it is life as usual. It’s not about how it affects my life. It’s about how it might affect somebody else’s life, and that’s what makes it a great honor.
Ralph Zuranski: Other than making people really feel great when you meet them and talk to them at the different conferences, are there any other ways that you are making the world a better place?
Donna Fox: I try to make the world a better place just by being the best “me” I can be and really just trying to touch people from the position of light and from a position of good.
Donna Fox: Life is way too short and we don’t know when our last day is. We don’t know when we are checking out. It’s too short to be burdened by problems and negativity and stress and angst and all those negative feelings, that while it’s important to recognize and feel them once in awhile, not to dwell on them. Being nice is the way I make the world a better place.
Ralph Zuranski: There seems to be a lot of major problems occurring in our society and just in our world today. Do you have any good solutions to the problems that are facing society such as spousal and child abuse, poverty, hunger and all the different things that seem to be keeping people down and not getting the opportunities to fulfill the God-given abilities that they have that would make them just amazing people like you talk about?
Donna Fox: Whew! Now I feel the burden of being a hero right there! Wow! There’s a lot of weight to that question.
Donna Fox: We all have needs and the needs for food and shelter, clothing, warmth and love is so profound and so strong that we can’t think past it if those aren’t met.
Donna Fox: I don’t know the cure for hunger. I don’t know how to clothe or house everyone on the planet. But I do know how to love them. That’s the one thing I can pretty much figure out.
Donna Fox: Nothing is going to be wrong with the world where there is more love. And from love other things get figured out. It’s from a position of love that charities are created. It’s from a position of love that someone finds the hero in themselves and goes on to do extraordinary things. Without that basic emotion being met, all of the evil in the world, all of the pain and the bad stuff, the spousal abuse, the child abuse, it all comes from a place that is other than that.
Donna Fox: So much like I say, almost jokingly but actually quite serious, I make the world a better place by being nice, we would all make the world a better place if we would just have a little more love and be a little more nice.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s a great answer, Donna. The world definitely needs a lot more love. That is for sure. Love for ourselves and love for everybody else. If you had three wishes for your life in the world that would instantly come true, what would they be?
Donna Fox: I wish for more discipline to be able to really use my powers for good. I wish for more patience to really be able to impact and create those “aha” moments in the people that really need them. I wish for a receptive vessel in humanity because there are so many people who have so much good to do.
Donna Fox: I think that sometimes we get closed off from being open to good because of media messages and just all of the trouble out there. So I wish that people were more receptive.
Ralph Zuranski: Donna, I really appreciate your time and I was just curious what do you think about the In Search of Heroes Program and it’s impact on youth and families and parents and kids and businesses?
Donna Fox: I think the In Search of Heroes Program is truly phenomenal. That you are able to see the hero in everyone and allow that heroism to trickle down and seed of heroism gets planted at a very young age.
Donna Fox: Whether that seed gets the water and the soil and the nutrients it needs to grow is really up to the lessons that we teach young people as they grow. The seed is there but do we feed it? Do we nurture it?
Donna Fox: The In Search of Heroes Program is going to do exactly that by telling every story of every person who is phenomenal, and every person is phenomenal. It builds and it grows. If there is one person out there who hears this interview and thinks, “Donna is not all that special and look what she did. Now she is pretty successful. I can do that, too.” That is priceless.
Ralph Zuranski: That is very special. I wanted to ask you just one parting question. Do you have a life goal that you want to achieve before you die?
Donna Fox: That is a great question. It’s kind of the funny thing about goals, that once you make them there is another one right around the corner. My life goal is that there is always another goal right around the corner.
Donna Fox: I don’t want to ever be done. I don’t want to ever retire. So that’s my goal, to have another goal.
Ralph Zuranski: Again Donna, I am so appreciative of your time and the incredible value of your answers. I’m so excited about being able to interview successful women that I have met at the internet conferences and women who are tremendous role models to the young women coming up.
Ralph Zuranski: There are a lot of men on the internet who are successful and it’s been hard finding women who are as successful as the men. It just is so critical to have female role models like yourself. So I really thank you for your time.
Donna Fox: Thank you so much, Ralph. It’s really important that we recognize that society recognizes success in dollar figures and success isn’t always about the money.
Donna Fox: As much as we like to think it is, and as inspirational as it is because we imagine that our lives will be different if there is money in them, but really some of the greatest successes are like Mother Theresa. She didn’t have money. Absolutely she is a success story.
Donna Fox: She is truly a hero in anyone’s book. I think when more people realize that heroism comes from within and isn’t about your checkbook or your bank account or the car that you drive but about the people you touch, suddenly those female heroes will start popping out of the woodwork. I hope that for you, and thank you so much for having me be a part of this. It’s been truly my pleasure and a lot of fun, too.