Dr. Pete Releases Exciting New Book, ‘The Love Fight’
By Space Coast Daily // February 5, 2015
SPECIAL SPOTLIGHT Q&A WITH DR. PETER WEISS
Dr. Peter Weiss, former CEO of Health First Health Plans then wellness advocate “Dr. Pete,” has a new book out on marriage and relationships.
Titled The Love Fight, it’s just been released on Amazon.com and through Florida Hospital Publishing. SpaceCoastDaily.Com caught up with Dr. Pete who answered our questions about his new book and more.
SCD: Congratulations on The Love Fight release! How did you come to write a book on marriage and relationships?
Dr. Pete: I’ve been interested in spiritual and emotional health since writing my first book, More Health, Less Care, which is mainly oriented towards physical health, and I was fortunate enough to meet Dr. Tony Ferretti, a prominent Melbourne, Florida physiologist, in early 2009.
Tony’s reflections on his experience in counseling physicians and other high-achieving professionals with relationship difficulties resonated deeply with my own personal experiences and conclusions. After six months of conversation, we decided to collaborate on a book based on his insights.
SCD: So what’s the book about?
Dr. Pete: In The Love Fight, Tony and I explain how worldly successful individuals fail at home in their intimate relationships, often from a mismatch of priorities and styles between the success-oriented “Achievers” and their relationship-oriented “Connector” spouses.
We think this achiever orientation is pretty common among physicians, attorneys, executives and entrepreneurs and can explain a lot of the relationship problems these individuals may experience. Basically our premise is that the same personality factors that drive success in business can drive a wedge between spouses.
SCD: Now that you’ve written two books, do you have any advice for our readers who might like to write one themselves?
Dr. Pete: Go for it! Start writing! But seriously, writing a book is a big commitment; you really have to want it. Persistence is essential. It took over five years of work for Tony and me to get to the release of The Love Fight. More Health, Less Care took two years.
Getting help and accepting criticism is also vital. We had a lot of help from friends and family, reviewers, editors and designers. Unfortunately the helping process usually involves a lot of criticism and that can be hard to take.
A friend once told me, “Pete, no one sits down and writes a good book. They just write a book and then get help to make it good.” I’ve found this to be true.
If you can write, persist, and accept help – you can be an author.
SCD: How are you doing personally?
Life is good for me and my family. Thanks for asking. I guess I should say, “I’m living the dream!” We enjoy living in Orlando, although we do miss our old friends on the Space Coast.
Florida Hospital is a great place to work, but the entire world of healthcare is under a tremendous amount of stress these days. I’m trying to do my part to help improve the healthcare system and to help individuals be well.
SCD: What’s next for you?
Dr: Pete: Well, promoting The Love Fight of course, but I also want to keep working on integrating the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of wellness.
I’d like to write a book on that, but I thought I would start small by blogging with my ideas on mind, body spirit integration.
The blog is called Health Discipleship and can be found at www.HealthDiscipleship.com. Hopefully it will be a book someday.
SCD: Congratulations again, and thanks for joining us.
Dr. Pete: Thank you for having me, and congratulations to you on the success of SpaceCoastDaily.com.
ABOUT DR. PETER WEISS
Dr. Peter Weiss is a physician, healthcare executive, author, speaker and health coach with a passion for helping others to health and wellness. His book on personal health, More Health, Less Care, has drawn excellent reviews, and his newest book, The Love Fight, has been recently released. Formerly CEO of Health First Health Plans, Dr. Weiss currently serves as Senior Vice President at Florida Hospital in Orlando, part of the Adventist Health System. You can find him on the web at www.healthdiscipleship.com
