Surviving the Side Hustle

From Finance to Healing: Zoraida Morales on Surviving Cancer and Becoming the Coach She Never Had

• Coach Rob • Season 1 • Episode 99

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Zoraida Morales's journey from finance professional to cancer coach reveals a profound metamorphosis that will resonate with anyone facing life's seemingly insurmountable challenges. As a born-and-raised New Yorker who escaped generational poverty through relentless hustle, Zoraida had mastered the art of grinding her way to success—until a cancer diagnosis at age 45 forced her to confront a challenge that couldn't be outworked.

What follows is a raw, emotional account of how Zoraida's breakdown led to her breakthrough. After 13 years of chemotherapy, a divorce, job loss, and moving from her suburban home to a New York City apartment during COVID, she reached her lowest point surrounded by boxes and despair. It was there she experienced a spiritual awakening that fundamentally shifted her approach to life: "My heart's going to be the leader, and my mind and ego are going to follow and support."

This powerful conversation reveals the seven-step approach Zoraida developed through her own healing journey and now uses to guide others facing cancer diagnoses. Her "three pillars of nutrition"—mental, physical, and spiritual—form the foundation of a coaching practice designed to help clients develop what she calls "devotion to self." Through practical tools like breathwork, nutrition guidance, movement, and spiritual connection, she helps clients navigate their cancer journeys with greater ease and support.

Zoraida's story isn't just about surviving cancer; it's about transforming trauma into purpose and discovering that sometimes our greatest challenges reveal our truest calling. Her parting wisdom—"Learn to love yourself, and then love yourself some more"—beautifully encapsulates the heart-centered approach that ultimately saved her life and now guides her work with others.

Ready to shift from grind mode to heart-centered living? Connect with Zoraida on LinkedIn or through her website to discover how her transformational approach might support your own journey toward wholeness.

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Speaker 1:

What's going on everybody and welcome back to another episode of Surviving the Side Hustle. Today's episode I have Zoraida Morales, who we got connected relatively recently through the Connected Leadership Academy that's what I believe. It is Our buddy Jose over there and we chatted a few times online and I felt like great interesting story, working on a lot of things, so I'm excited to have you here today. How are you?

Speaker 2:

I'm good, thank you, how are you? And thank you for having me here. I love having conversations with you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, of course it's my pleasure. I'm excited to kind of dive into hearing a little bit more about your story, some secret tips you might have for helping you perform at a higher level, and just kind of dive in. So I know a little bit about your background, I know a bit with nutrition and some other things, but how about you kind of tell the audience who you are, what do you, who do you help with and all that whole kind of thing?

Speaker 2:

So I am Sarita Morales. As you know, I am a born and raised New Yorker living in Virginia Beach, and I moved to Virginia Beach about a year ago because I got a message. I got a message from source to go to Virginia Beach. That was, that was wild, because I was actually working on in Virginia Beach for three weeks and I was working on the beach, so it was wonderful. So here I am, walking to the supermarket and I hear a whisper and the whisper says you belong. And it startled me and I'm looking around and there's no one next to me. And it startled me and I'm looking around and there's no one next to me. And that wasn't me. That was source telling me that I needed to move from New York City to Virginia Beach. So six months later I did All right.

Speaker 2:

Now I got to tell you right, I am a 17-year cancer survivor and I took chemo for 13 years and we'll go into it. But source and I say source because for me it's God, it's mother, goddess, father, god. But then I have these archangels and then I have these ancestors who guide me and they protect me and they love me, and so I call a source. And he said, while I was taking chemo, that I was going to be a cancer coach. And I had no idea what that meant. I had never heard of a cancer coach. I needed a cancer coach, and so I became the coach that I didn't have and that I always wanted, because I didn't want anyone else to go through what I went through alone, feeling that despair, that fear, the anxiety.

Speaker 2:

So here I am, 17 years later. I started a business Only because I made the heart the leader and I made the mind and ego my follow and support, which is totally different than what I've done in the past. I'm a finance professional, so you can imagine what that's like. But after this cancer diagnosis I knew I had to do things differently, because if I was going to be on this earth, I was going to make sure that I was going to live with no regret, that I was going to really show up for myself so that I could show up for my community and the world.

Speaker 1:

So that's powerful stuff. I'm glad that you survived through and went through all that hardship, because now I know you are helping a lot of other individuals work through difficult times themselves, and I'm interested to kind of pull us back a little bit here. You mentioned finance in the beginning, so can you bring us back to where everything kind of began? What was the beginning of this journey into becoming a cancer coach and then, if you could please can dive into what your definition of a cancer coach is?

Speaker 2:

So let me see if I remember what you just said, because I'm a little nervous. So you know, here I am. I'm a what was I? I was a finance administrative manager working at the top five finance company. I think I'm living my best life. I have a house that was built exactly for me, I have a husband, I have a home, I have two children. Up at 4.30 in the morning, exercising, finding right, because I've got to look good, feel good and I'm thinking I'm living the life that I'm supposed to be living. And then, at 45 years old, rob, I get this cancer diagnosis. And it just happened randomly. I go to get a routine physical and that's when I learned it, and so it rocked me. It rocked me to my core Because here's the thing For me, performance meant grinding right.

Speaker 2:

I'm a kid from the South Bronx in New York City, born in the 60s, born into generational poverty, born into generational trauma. So I knew that my life wasn't like everybody else's, but I knew how I wanted it to be, and so my mother went to college at night and worked during the day for 10 years in the 1970s and the 1980s. Go to college and take us out of poverty. We still had that mindset poverty mindset, scarcity mindset. So here I am, I go to college, I'm finally working at the top company. I worked my way up supervising 200 people, and I get this diagnosis.

Speaker 2:

I wasn't happy, I was kicking and screaming, I didn't even realize it, but I was using all the tools and resources that I had used to get me out of the South Bronx, which didn't work with cancer. So I kept saying to the doctor what do I have to do? What do I have to do? I'm treating it like a goal. Right? That's not the way you treat cancer.

Speaker 2:

Cancer is about your feelings. Cancer is about your traumas, because your traumas are going to get in the way of your healing. And that was the biggest life lesson for me. So at that point, at some point, I knew that I had to work through my traumas. I had to work through limiting beliefs and listen. I'll continue to work on those for the rest of my life because there's a lot. And so you know, becoming the cancer coach that I wanted because it was such a lonely road. I mean, my marriage didn't survive I was married for 24 years didn't survive it because his traumas got in the way. See what happens when you get a chronic illness diagnosis. Best thing that came out of that was I get to be the coach that I wanted and now I get to help others alongside them, because now they don't feel so lonely, because they've got me, because I'm managing my side effects, I'm managing my food nutrition. So their struggles are my struggles and it's the best thing I've ever done ever.

Speaker 1:

Wow, yeah, so that's crazy. So here you are. All you have ever known is just hustle, grind, hard work and outworking the competition, and it's been successful for you for your entire life. It got you to this point where you're at the top firm, you've got hundreds of people underneath you that you're leading, and then you get hit with this crazy bomb that just knocks you off. And then you try to outwork cancer and it just doesn't seem to be working and then you have to make this mindset shift of it's not necessarily working harder. Now I got to pay attention to the trauma and the feelings and such. Where did you get that insight that, hey, I can no longer outwork this beast. I need to shift up, switch my approach somehow. What was it that led you to that switch?

Speaker 2:

It was that breakdown right, because through the breakdowns come these beautiful breakthroughs, and we try to fight them. We try not to have them. Here I am in New York City in a two-bedroom apartment. I just sold my 2,500 square foot house. The house that my children were born in grew up in in suburbia in New Jersey, so I moved to New York City. I'm in a fourth walker two bedroom. I'm surrounded by boxes.

Speaker 2:

It's COVID, it's the beginning of COVID, and I'm looking at all these boxes and all I could remember was despair and fear and anger. And then I started to cry and for the first time in 13 years I looked up and I said God, it's me, zoraida. I know it's been a long time because I quit him. I was like how could you give me cancer? Because again, my mindset was that things were happening to me, not for me at the time. So I said to him how could you let this happen? You know the life I've had, you know the struggles I've had Hell, I have four miscarriages before I had my first child and I had him at 40 years old, and so when I go to him this time, I have nothing else to give. I had to believe in something higher than myself. And so I said to him God, I need you to love me, I need you to protect me, I need you to hold me, because everyone is upset at my decision to get this divorce. I made the right choice, but my whole life has just blown up and now we're in COVID.

Speaker 2:

It was at that moment, rob, that the breakthrough happened, because he hugged me. I felt the warmth of his body. I get tingles. I'm thinking about it now. He hugged me. I feel the hug right now as I'm saying it. I cried like he was. I just put my head on his shoulders. I knew that he had my back. I knew that there was someone there that believed in me, that was going to love me, and I just cried and cried and 20 minutes later I just wiped my tears away, took a deep breath. I think I got a glass of wine after that Because away took a deep breath.

Speaker 2:

I think I got a glass of wine after that because I was like and then I started unpacking and for a week I was not myself. I was like what the heck just happened? Who was I going to tell? Who can believe me? Everyone who knows me knows that my mother's agnostic. Everyone who knows me knows that I didn't grow up with religion. So for me to say that I felt his hug, people would have thought that I was on something. They just wouldn't have believed it. And, plus, this was so sacred. I didn't want to say it to anyone because I still didn't know what I felt about it. But I knew something magical happened because I felt it, because I felt it in my body, not because I heard it, but because I felt it there, felt it in my body, not because, not because I heard it, because I felt it. There's a difference between feeling it and seeing it and hearing it. At least for me it is, and it changed my whole world right there yeah.

Speaker 1:

So that's crazy and thank you for sharing that. That's pretty powerful stuff and and so because what I'm hearing here is you've got you're this hard worker who's never going to be outworked, and you just grind, grind, grind and you essentially you've got the unstoppable force hitting the immovable object which is then their cancer, and you're just grinding, grinding, grinding and almost like the sense of release where you're now kind of sounds like surrendering over to God and accepting him or higher power of something, and I think in that sense of release, I think that was kind of where you slow down and allowed your body to then, hey, now I can kind of take a step back, to take two steps forward, healing journey with a new life, with a whole new outlook on everything. So I think it was like you going through that metamorphosis maybe, or evolution.

Speaker 2:

Perfect word. Perfect is exactly what I'm thinking, as you're saying. It metamorphosis.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so that's powerful stuff. And from there, what started happening? And I'm guessing because you're going through chemo during all these other times and talk to me about more about that. And then, where did you get the idea for the cancer coach to when? When did that come in where they're like? Cause you're still in finance at this time, I guess.

Speaker 2:

So I didn't tell you, but I got laid off during during the time that I was selling my home.

Speaker 2:

So now I moved to New York city and I don't have a salary. I don't, right, no one in New York City during COVID even wanted to rent me an apartment because I didn't have a salary. Right, we're talking this is July 2020. And then New York, new Jersey, connecticut, closed down April, march, and so I surrendered I mean, you know the words that I'm. I surrendered and so I had to go through this conversation with myself because after that week, or I should say during that week, I said, oh, my God, I've got to change my mindset. My heart's going to be the leader and my mind and ego are going to follow and support, because I grew up with the mind and the ego leading. That's how I was grinding, and so the mind and the ego would, at times, ignore my heart. You know you don't take those compliments to heart right, or ignore the heart. So I said, okay, mind and ego, and I did it just like that. We've got a new game plan, right, if we're going to live as long as we hope to live, we don't want to live with regrets. So we're going to do things differently. The heart is going to be the mind, the leader, and the mind and ego are going to follow and support. And my mind said what? No, no, no, no, no, we're going back to finance. That is where we belong. This is who we are. My ego said, hell, no, we want our house again. We want to go on vacation three, four times a year. We want to send our kids to college. We like the title we have. No, we're not doing that.

Speaker 2:

But I kept going back to the mind and the ego. The mind and the ego Listen, this is going to be good for us, I promise you. I promise you, we're going to have a conversation with God and we're going to make sure that he knows that we want to go on vacation three, four times a year, that we need to send our kids to college. And that's exactly kind of like what I did. I went back to God. I went back because, remember, I'm still mind and ego. I'm just my mind, it's. I'm still mind and ego. So I go back to God and I go okay, god, I'm going to do this for you Now. Hear the words that I just said. I'm going to do this for you Now. I understand I'm doing it for myself. But then I was like I'm going to do this for you. I'm going to help all the cancer people with you, because I know you can't do this all by yourself. But you got to make sure I go on vacation three, four times a year. You got to make sure that I go back to living in a house in the suburban area, because I didn't. I mean, I moved to New York City for my job and then I get laid off, so I wanted to go back to suburbia.

Speaker 2:

And two months later my sister calls and she says would you do me a favor, would you speak to this mom whose 27-year-old daughter just got diagnosed with stage four metastasis breast cancer? Now, that happened to me a lot during those years, because I was like the only person that people knew that I had cancer. So I said, sure, people knew that I had cancer. So I said, sure, I'll speak to her. I get on a call with mom. Mom is devastated. She had just gotten the news that her daughter got this diagnosis. I let her speak, I let her cry, I just let her be and then I tell her the seven things that I suggest she does.

Speaker 2:

Now.

Speaker 2:

I had no idea that I had seven things, but I spewed seven things out right. One take a deep breath. Take a lot of deep breaths, because you're not going to breathe for a long time. Two, get a second and the third diagnosis. I mean not the third diagnosis opinion, a second opinion. Three, get a coach. Now remember, I'm not a coach by this time I'm like get a coach right, because you need someone to help you release those fears, release the anxiety, learn some new modalities right.

Speaker 2:

Four, up level your food nutrition. Get rid of that processed food. Start eating more whole foods. Five, start moving. Right. If you go out in nature, do some yoga, do some strength training, walk even one block around the neighborhood, whatever that is for you that works. Do that. The next one believe in something higher than yourself, because I knew that what I felt, I knew what I felt. So believe in something higher than yourself, no matter what that is for you. And lastly, get your tribe in order. Find out who's going to buy groceries, take you to doctor's appointments, who's going to be calling to check up on you.

Speaker 2:

And there I gave her seven things and I had no idea. I have a written down now I have a checklist. That's what I gave her and when she heard everything that I said and she gave me her gratitude. My heart opened and I took her gratitude and I just took her gratitude and I just I marinated it right here and in that moment, in that moment, god source said I'm going to be a cancer coach. I had no idea what that meant. I had never heard of one, seen one, didn't know one, I've never read about one, I just didn't. But I knew that I was onto something. I knew that this was what I was meant to do.

Speaker 1:

So are those seven steps essentially what you help your clients kind of identify and create and kind of set up so that they can hopefully have a successful journey through the cancer healing process.

Speaker 2:

Exactly so I made it into a program. It's called the three pillars of nutrition mental, physical and spiritual. So the mental piece is your emotions right, learning how to manage your stress, anxiety, your fears, meditation, breath work, doing Reiki, participating in sound healing whatever works for my client. I help them with those modalities right, because I do all those modalities. But it doesn't mean that that works for every person, because everyone is different. So I tailor my program and then the physical is the food and the movement and the spiritual is whatever works for you. Because I find when people go through my program, what they start to develop which is what I developed is a devotion to self. And I find that when people learn to devote to themselves, when you put that mask on first and then everyone else, you actually show up a different way, you communicate a different way, and then what happens is you devote to your community and then you devote to something higher than yourself.

Speaker 1:

Wow, yeah, I love that, similarly to what you do. That is to what I kind of lean into with a lot of my coaching. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs and solopreneurs specifically kind of made that shift from having a hobby into now a side hustle and starting to make a little bit of money. But a lot of things that I teach is that, like, essentially, devotion to self, it's becoming a better self leader so that they can kind of get themselves back on track, pushing themselves growing, progressing on a personal level, so that they can get their professional level back on track into that successful stages that they once had when you kicked off the launch.

Speaker 1:

So I love what you're sharing there and I love a lot of the different things that you're sharing about. And, like what you're saying too, there's a lot of different modalities, there's a lot of different strategies, there's a lot of different practices that people can implement and work through and the secret really is to figuring out what works well for you as the individual, because everybody is so individualized like there's no one way or best way. It's it's what really figuring out what's works best for you. So I really love that you had shared that there. That's awesome.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, our programs are very, very similar and I think what's the root of it is that devotion to self and understanding that everyone comes from a different level of consciousness. So then we're able to tailor our programs to the client. And it makes me so happy when and I know you probably feel this too when you see your client get that mindset shift, because it's all a mindset shift. You know, a lot of some things are perceived and some things are not right. So the mindset shift, you know we have a lot of things in our head it's out in our own heads that say, no, we're not good enough to do this, no, we don't have the tools to do that. But it's a shift and this is why people need a coach. You don't have to be rich to get a coach, but everybody needs a coach. I have a coach. I have three coaches. You probably do, I know you have coaches.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, I've got like four.

Speaker 2:

I couldn't do this by myself, because here's the thing I don't know what I don't know.

Speaker 1:

Exactly.

Speaker 2:

So I need to surround myself with people who do know, so I can shift. And this is how I met you, because I said yes to Jose Escobar and I wasn't looking for another coach. I already had a business coach. When I met him, our 30 minutes turned into 90, not because he was selling me, because it wasn't a selling. It was someone introducing me to him. And she said I just want you to meet him. There's something about him that I think you're going to enjoy having a conversation with. And I said yes.

Speaker 2:

At the end of the 90 minutes, I told him you don't have a coach, right, you don't have a business coach, but I loved everything you said. Most importantly, I like how you make me feel and I knew that I would be in good hands and I knew that he, he believes in my mission. He told me that and I know when someone believes in my mission because I feel it. I'm the administrative manager now who feels these things and I go by my intuition, and so I said yes. Saying yes introduced me to you and I go by my intuition, and so I said yes. Saying yes introduced me to you and I'm like, oh shit, we're so like-minded but we do different things, but we're helping our community. I love that. I love the like-mindedness.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I love that you're making this shift and you're helping so many people live better lives and such a powerful impact that you're leaving and taking on these clients where some people might not even have too much of a family or support system around. So not only are you kind of guiding, you're also supporting and you're there as another person to kind of lean on it. So that's powerful things and I'm excited to continue, along with our friendship, to see where you're going and as you're continuing to grow with things. So I'm really excited for that. But if someone's listening to this right now, where's the best way for them to stay up to date with what you've got going on? Or if they have somebody to recommend or refer to you, or if themselves are looking for a coach, how do they get in touch with you?

Speaker 2:

So I live on LinkedIn and I post about three, four times a week and I just finished posting on the 21 day transformational nutrition cleanse. That I did because I wanted to take people through it Because, again, it's a, it's a transformational cleanse. So it's mind, body and spirit. That's how I, that's how I, that's how I live, right, and so it just made sense for me to walk people through it instead of telling them about it. So you can find me there. I have a website called ZoraidaMoralescom. Actually, it's a sales funnel.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to be building a website soon, because now I'm about to do my first solo talk on Saturday, because here's the thing, I'm getting comfortable, being uncomfortable. I've got to do this and so it's going to be messy, but I'm going to celebrate it and I know it's going to catapult me into such amazing things. I'm expecting such amazing things to happen from this. So they can find me there. I'm also on Facebook, a little bit on Instagram, but I have so many goodies, like a honey, ginger, turmeric balm and listen, I just don't work with cancer patients, or I should say, clients.

Speaker 2:

I work with anyone who wants to make that mindset shift. So I have this honey, ginger, turmeric balm, and of course, it has honey, ginger and turmeric and pepper and MCT oil, and so you put it all together and it's a paste. I take a spoonful of this every morning. Now what this does? This eases indigestion and it minimizes your inflammation in your body. So, as a cancer survivor of 17 years, I don't take acetaminophen If I have a pain. This is what I do, this is what I take, and so this is like this yummy. It's like this yummy paste and it's better than a Snickers bar.

Speaker 1:

Nice.

Speaker 2:

So I have a lot of goodies, yeah, that I'm willing to share.

Speaker 1:

There you go. So if you're interested in some more of the goodies or recipes or anything, make sure you connect with her on LinkedIn and Facebook and you said Instagram, but you're not too active over there but also check out the websites that she mentioned as well and if you're interested, make sure you reach out Very easy to get in contact. I sent you a message and we were on the phone chatting very quickly afterwards. So I really appreciate you taking the time today. Sharing your story is so powerful and I know you're going to be impacting so many people.

Speaker 1:

The people that you are working with now are probably so grateful that they've got such a caring and supportive individual who's guiding them and teaching them through this transformational journey, so I appreciate that so much. But before I let you go, I got to ask you if you were to take all the information that you've learned through this journey and to boil it all down to one piece of advice to help somebody not only survive, but to start thriving in their life and really unlock those new levels through the transformation. What would be your number one piece of advice for them?

Speaker 2:

I learned this from my spiritual teacher. I had to learn to love myself and then love myself some more.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that. That is great. Love yourself and then love yourself some more. That's really powerful, wow, awesome. I appreciate you so much for sharing. Again, thank you, this was really awesome. I know a lot of people are going to get a lot of value from this episode and I'm looking forward to checking in with you later down the road and staying in touch, so we'll have to have you back on in the future.

Speaker 2:

I love that. Thank you so much and thank you for your audience. Who's watching?

Speaker 1:

Talk to you guys soon, Peace, peace.