Dr. Joseph Pecoraro With Your Vibrant Life Now and Hearts Afire

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Dr. Joe Pecoraro with your vibrant life now and hearts Afire. Welcome, Dr. Joe.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:00:47] Hey, thanks so much. Glad to be on Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:49] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your practice. How are you serving, folks?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:00:54] Well, my practice is is long gone. I am a vascular and general surgeon by trade, but approximately 16 years ago, when I discovered a health program that empowered me to be able to lose one hundred and twenty pounds, my wife 20, it made life so much easier. And as our income began to grow, we really shifted our attention to health coaching full time. So now my wife and I worked full time as health coaches from home and business coaches. And it’s it’s a great life. It’s so much different than having surgery. Control your time and your income and so much third party payor control over your life.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:49] Now, was that a difficult transition since you know you invest so much time in becoming a doctor and surgeon to make that shift away from, I guess, kind of the the flywheel of medicine to the flywheel of coaching.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:02:04] I think the most difficult part was releasing my identity from my identity, being my profession to my identity, really being me. And when I began to also recognize that not everyone needs it needs surgery, but certainly at least ninety five percent of people in this country, and I would guess even higher around the world are looking for more income, and at least two thirds of our population is in need of better health. I realize that changing direction in life isn’t such a tragic thing as long as you’re still doing something of value and you’re adding value to others.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:46] So now when you kind of had that mindset shift, was that freeing or were you nervous? Like, like, what was it kind of like to go from? You know, you were probably part of a larger, much larger organization that was more complex to what you have now.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:03:03] Yeah, and all change is different and. I don’t know if I could say that it was necessarily difficult because some people don’t embrace change, but I have always embraced change. So for my wife, Rhonda and I, it was it was very exciting because we were looking at new and different adventures and most importantly, as the awareness of how valuable time is in our lives becomes. I begin to realize that you can always make more money, but you can never make more time. And what coaching did was it gave us the time freedom to be able to not necessarily make more time, but to be able to control the time that we do have.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:55] Now how has it kind of changed you in terms of how you relate to an individual client now?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:04:03] Well, I started out. Let’s look at where I was first is I was overworked and in a very changing environment that was controlling my income. And even though I had a high income with no control of time, physically, I was a mess. I was 120 pounds overweight. On couldn’t really get sleep, because when the alarm goes off in the middle of the night for a surgical emergency, you’re expected to be 100 percent on your game immediately. Whereas I was thinking the other day as I haven’t woken up to an alarm in close to 10 years, and that’s really a nice way to live. And when you realize that you’re doing well by helping other people do good things in their lives and improve their health and improve their finances and relieve them from stress and help them have an opportunity to work from anywhere. It’s it is liberating in the sense that you you always want to be able to do for other people what you can do for yourselves. And as we also have a nonprofit which we’ll talk about in a minute. But the issue is that the best way for me to explain it is that when I took my children fishing for the first time and they caught the fish, I was excited for them. I didn’t think to myself, Wow, I wanted to catch that fish because there’s so much value in helping other people be able to do for themselves. And that’s what coaching has done. I couldn’t do that in surgery. All I could do is remove body parts and help keep people alive longer. Whereas now what we’re doing is we’re giving people an opportunity to live a more abundant life and a healthier.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:01] So now when people are coming to you, what kind of state are they in?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:06:08] There’s the full spectrum, there’s people that are entrepreneurs that are just looking for an ideal business with a low investment. There’s people who are morbidly obese like I was, and they’re just looking to get healthy. There’s people that are looking for both. There’s women who are in the perimenopausal age that just need to lose about 10 or 20 pounds, but it’s been difficult for them to shake it. There’s people like I was who are on the roller coaster of gain weight, lose weight and don’t really have the tools like we do with a multi-pronged approach to be able to give people the opportunity to have lifelong transformation.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:50] So now just walk me through what it’s like that first conversation when someone reaches out to you or your team.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:06:58] And it’s it’s always interesting because people are thinking that we’re going to start them on a diet, and one of the first things I really try and help people understand is that if they’re thinking diet, which has a beginning and an end, and I tell them, think about what the first three letters in diet are die, that’s what most people feel like. I say that’s not us at all. So let’s find out what your health goals are. Let’s find out what you want to accomplish. And then we’ll share how our program works and see if it’s a fit. So we want to find out how people sleep. We want to find out what their daily activity is like, what their eating habits are like. Because what we’re going to do is we’re going to put together a program for them where while it will have a personalized nutritional plan, it also will address the issue of being in a healthy community that we can plug them into. It will address the issue of helping them learn how to change their habits. And it’ll give them a personal health coach to guide them through the process.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:07] So now, once they start and they get this kind of intellectual knowledge, is it that simple that once I know this, then I do. This isn’t the hard part, kind of the day to day sticking to it, part the support and accountability part.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:08:22] It is. And first and foremost, people need to be ready because timing is so critical. When I first got started, like I said, I was up and down my entire life. And then when I when I realized that it was impairing my opportunity to do mission work, my mindset was shifted in such a way that. If I saw something that was going to work and was going to help me full time, I was ready. But the value of the health coach is this the health coach doesn’t drive the car for you. What they do is they’re sitting in the passenger seat and they’re helping you by empowering you with the tools necessary for you to be able to learn how to control your own life and your own health through mindset shifts.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:13] So, but is it as simple as a mindset shift? I mean, you’re talking about I’m an intellectually by now. Most people have to understand the benefits of healthier eating, moving a little bit, you know, exercise. Don’t they know this? It’s like smoking. Like, everybody knows smoking is not good for you, but still lots of people smoke.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:09:34] Well, they do. And surprisingly, we generally encounter three different types of people, those who have tried everything and just feel like they haven’t been able to do it. And largely it’s because they don’t have the help. And I think that’s one of the big factors is the coach, because it’s always easier to change your program from day to day and to think if no one’s looking, there’s no accountability. But when you become accountable to someone else and you learn to become accountable to yourself. And in fact, many of our clients become coaches and then they’re accountable to their clients. It does change it a little bit, and there is a second subset of people that they just don’t care. They know that they’re unhealthy. They’re going to eat whatever they want, just like they’re going to smoke. They’re not even going to try and quit smoking some subset of people. But then there’s also those people that will while you and I recognize that the vast majority of people should know that eating healthy is important. A lot of people really have a skewed concept of what eating healthy really is.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:54] Now, people eat for a variety of reasons, and I would imagine if you look at the waistline that most people in America specifically, it isn’t just for fuel to get them through the day that there’s, you know, maybe some emotional components, psychological components that have to do with their eating is does. Is any of that address or is this as simple kind of mindset shift?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:11:21] Which is a yes. The mindset shift will lead people to us and we can show them the road. But what you’re talking about is is so important because, yeah, you can shift your mindset, but you still have to go through the motions. And that’s really where the coach comes in. Because oftentimes and you may have heard this phrase that people are overweight, not because of what they’re eating, but because of what’s eating their. Right, in many times that may have to do with just thinking that people don’t care and that they have no value. And so really what we also try to do is help people understand that we do care because we’ve experienced it. We have seen how other people’s lives have changed and we know how their life can change. So we do care. And oftentimes that’s enough to start moving people in the direction of. Caring more about themselves and then as they do care more about themselves and they see success, all these things more or less snowball and they develop momentum in their life in so many ways, including their personal development and being able to actually, in a sense, hold the pen that writes their health future.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:51] And then so once they’re on this kind of the healthier path, is there kind of like, is this am I like going, OK, now I need a coach for life or is it at some point, do I kind of own this? And then I get it now and then I have the priorities and I have the self-discipline, and I have that maybe greater why that is enabling me to do maybe make wiser choices on a regular basis or more often

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:13:22] I would say any and all of those. In other words, we do have people that they come to us and they get empowered and they oftentimes either don’t need us anymore or they stay connected to the community. But more loosely, we have those that say, This is so awesome. My life has changed so much. I have to pay this forward and they become coaches and they start helping other people. And then there’s those that that we stay connected with, but it’s a different relationship, much the way that when you have children, you start out doing everything for them, then you do for them only what they can’t do. Then you teach them what to do and then you watch them do it. But you’re still there for them as a consultant, as someone who cares for them, as someone, as a guide. So really, we’re there for people at whatever, whatever level of need they have.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:29] And then that at some point this kind of goes beyond the health point and then it kind of affects their finances as well.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:14:38] Well, for those who choose to pursue health coaching themselves, number one, it gives them great accountability. Number two, it allows them to work not just from home, but from anywhere in the world. I mean, sometimes I’ve made calls from the top of mountains, from the middle of the Serengeti, from out kayaking in the ocean, and people say, Well, I don’t want to work like that and I say, I just do that so that you can see that we can do it from anywhere. But to be able to control your hours is also important. To be able to empower other people is also important to be able to develop a walk away type. Income is important to not have overhead and still be able to generate whatever income you’re willing to work towards without a ceiling is something that a lot of people desire. So, yeah, we do. We we help people that are ready to change their lives. Because let’s face it, when someone starts having great results and they have high energy and they look better and they feel better, and you can tell they just have that healthy glow about them, people want to know what they’re doing. And so we offer at that time to be able to take care of their friends and family as referrals. Or we show them how to coach themselves, and there’s really great value in that as well, because then we are able to see others succeed. Oftentimes people that don’t have any other way that they can achieve the type of incomes that are available for coaches who who have good work ethics.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:24] Now does the coaching take place one on one? Is it in group form? Is it kind of on demand like on an online basis?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:16:36] Most of the time it’s a one on one basis by phone. We connect with people by text Facebook Messenger. Rarely, there’s situations like sometimes in physicians offices, they’ll do group coaching, but people tend to share better as an individual. If if, if you’re in a room with even two or three other people and they’re talking about how great they did during the week and you had a little bit of a stumble, you probably don’t want to share that. But if you know that you’re connecting with a coach who cares about you and wants to see you succeed, you might be a little bit more willing to share knowing that they’re going to help you make the adjustments necessary in order for you to be able to proceed in a more effective manner.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:30] Now are are the people who go through the program and decide to be coaches? Are they typically people like you, former people in medicine? Or can this be a layperson like, do you need have to have special credentials in order to do this?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:17:46] Great question, because a lot of people, a lot of times people will say to me, Well, you’re at an advantage because I’m at a physician and I say, Well, you just prove that I’m at a disadvantage because if you think you have to be a physician to do this, then that really lowers the ability for people to see that you can do it. Whereas if somebody is in construction or they’re a choir director and they have success, then you know that anyone can do it. So absolutely do not have to be a health professional. Only about 20 percent of coaches in our organization are health professionals. Most of them are people who are just passionate about health. Passionate about helping others. They want more out of life. They’re willing to do what it takes to get more out of life without sacrificing morals, without sacrificing family time and without really having to do any of the things that so often the world associates with success.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:49] Now, do you find that in general, whether it’s your health coaching or your finance coaching, whatever the coaching may be, that really in order to have that mindset shift, there has to be kind of a true north or a mission that’s worth going on.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:19:06] Always, if a person, if they don’t know where they’re going, then any road will take them there, I think that might have been one a Yogi Bear is. But yeah, they have to know what they want because otherwise what you’re doing is you’re shooting arrows at a target that doesn’t exist. So that’s part of the what we call the health assessment when we sit down with them and and we find out what it is that they really want to achieve in their health and in their life. And oftentimes it takes some introspection and it takes some thought for people to really look into that because so many people think more about their two week vacation than they do about their health and their life.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:55] Now, share a little bit about, and I’m sure this organization is important to you, the hearts of fire that I’m sure contributes to your why you wake up in the morning every day.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:20:08] Oh no question. Hearts of Fire is a nonprofit Christian organization. My wife and I and another physician are co-founders, and we’re dedicated to meeting the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of under-resourced people worldwide. And so our our current hashtag, which is really what our goal is and it really spills over between our coaching business and our ministry or nonprofit, is that the hashtag is igniting a culture of selflessness. And so many people have heard Zig Ziglar, 101, that when you do, when you help help enough other people get what they want, you automatically get what you want and that is part of what hearts afire does. I mean, we’re out there and we’re we’re helping people with wells, sustainable projects. We built a hospital in Kenya that we’re still seeking full financing for during the pandemic. We were able to not only feed people, but we were able to help people start projects so that they can feed themselves. And this was not even a situation of teach a person to fish and they eat for a lifetime. This was more of a situation of given the fishing pole because they already know how to fish. They already want to, but they just need a little bit of a boost in resources. So we currently we’ve built wells around the world Peru, India, Swaziland, Kenya. Our current focus is Kenya, where we’re building a hospital. We’ve built schoolhouses there and in India, we’ve started a dairy project that’s self-sustaining, a poultry project, a flour mill. And all of these projects are not just to self sustain, but they’re all designed to give back as well.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:22:17] So, for instance, our dairy project provides milk for an orphanage with one hundred and eighty girls. Our poultry project teaches children in a nearby orphanage how to care for the poultry. And it also provides them the eggs and the and chicken for protein are our mill project provides flour, corn flour for widows and families at risk in the tribal Maasai area of Kenya. So our goal again, it’s it’s so parallel to what we do here in coaching in that we we really want to empower people to be able to do for themselves. But sometimes people just need a coach. They just need to know someone cares. And I don’t know who was that said, but you haven’t lived until you’ve done something for someone who can never repay you. And that really is the goal of what we do in hearts of fire as we’re not looking for accolades, we’re not looking for a pat on the back. What we’re looking to do is really follow the plan that God designed for us, which is to those who have more, they should do more. More is required of them. And if we’re given these resources, I think it’s our obligation to be able to help them to utilize those resources for other people. Because let’s face it. The view from the top of a mountain by yourself is really not the same as if it’s shared with other people. So what what value is it to put yourself on a pedestal and have people point towards you? It’s so much more rewarding to be able to see other people enriched in their lives.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:18] Now, part of the reason we do this show is for coaches to learn from each other. Do you mind sharing how you got your last client? How did the last client you got? How did they come to you?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:24:34] Right now, the most common way we get clients is either direct referrals, because so many people are so successful on our program or through social media. People see the lifestyle that we lead. They see the they see how healthy we are. And I mean, my wife and I are in our early 60s and it’s hard for a lot of people to really believe that because neither one of us. Is on medication. Neither one of us has ever been on medication and we lead an active lifestyle, and it’s easy to look at that and say I could never do that. But when they look back and see where we were at five, six and three hundred plus pounds, I was not climbing mountains. I was not in a kayak. I was not hiking or jogging. And I didn’t lose the weight because I do those things. I do those things because I lost the weight and got healthy.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:36] Good stuff. Well, if somebody wants to learn more, I have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team. What’s the best website for them to connect with you?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:25:46] Well, they can from the ministry. They could go to WW hearts afire. That’s H.E.R. Rtx, a fiery, not US like United States for coaching. I mean, I don’t know if it’s OK for me to give my cell phone because that’s the best way for people to connect with me is nine four one seven one eight zero three four one, or they can go to Dr. Joe and Rhonda. That’s Joey and RH and A. Dot com.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:28] Good stuff, Dr. Joe, congratulations on all the success you’re doing, important work and we appreciate you.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:26:34] Hey, thanks so much. Great talking with you today, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:36] All right. All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.