A Dating Coach on ADHD and Super-Connecting [Video]

By Understood

Steve Dean once put a sign up in a NYC park offering “free dating advice.” Learn how this ADHD super connector became a dating coach who helps people find love. And get his surprising advice on how to find your own unique career path.

To find a transcript for this episode and more resources, visit the episode page at Understood. https://www.understood.org/podcast/ho…

We love hearing from our listeners. Email us at [email protected].

Understood is dedicated to shaping a world where millions of people who learn and think differently can thrive at home, at school, and at work. Learn more about “How’d You Get THAT Job?!” at u.org/podcast. Copyright © 2021 Understood for All, Inc. All rights reserved.

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:01
[Music]
0:02
[Applause]
0:05
from the understood podcast network this
0:07
is how did you get that job a podcast
0:10
that explores the unique and often
0:11
unexpected career paths of people with
0:14
learning and thinking differences my
0:16
name is eleni matheal and i’m a user
0:18
researcher here at understood that means
0:20
i spend a lot of time thinking about how
0:22
we find jobs we love that reflect how we
0:24
learn and who we are
0:26
i’ll be your host
0:32
steve dean is the founder of date
0:34
working which offers dating industry
0:36
consultations relationship coaching
0:38
workshops and experimental events in new
0:40
york city he also has adhd
0:42
so steve you’re a dating coach and a
0:45
consultant what does that mean
0:47
okay so
0:48
i guess it starts with
0:50
helping people navigate the
0:53
3000 plus dating apps that are out there
0:55
and all of the different possible
0:57
relationship permutations that they may
0:59
find themselves in and so i work with
1:01
individuals in order to get them either
1:03
on the right app or just going to or
1:05
hosting the right events to bring the
1:07
people they’re looking to meet into
1:09
their lives
1:10
i help them craft profiles and
1:12
make good photo lineups that capture and
1:15
distill their personality into this
1:17
weird two-dimensional space we call like
1:19
the internet of dating things there’s
1:21
apps there’s services there’s
1:22
matchmakers it’s across the board
1:24
there’s so many apps i have 250 of them
1:27
that i’ve made profiles on i have 150 on
1:29
my phone well 150 apps on your phone um
1:33
it’s overwhelming and for a lot of
1:35
people they download two and they’re
1:36
already exhausted so i help people first
1:38
and foremost with their entire dating
1:40
lives and then when it comes to
1:43
me getting frustrated with all the apps
1:44
that i’m using and being frustrated by
1:47
and seeing my clients get frustrated
1:48
with i then turn around to the industry
1:50
and i say make better apps and so i used
1:53
to work in mobile strategies so i can
1:56
advise founders and ceos on how to build
1:59
a better and more compelling mobile
2:01
experience for the daters who i’m also
2:03
serving awesome
2:05
so 150 apps on your phone how do you
2:08
keep track of all of that
2:10
honestly i wish i had a good answer for
2:12
that
2:13
i do bucket them into
2:15
over a dozen different folders
2:18
for me i have the standout apps that
2:20
don’t have to be in a folder they’re the
2:21
ones i’ll access most regularly and i
2:23
find them to be most compelling and
2:25
they’re usually the ones i’ll refer to
2:27
my clients but then there’s other apps
2:28
like some for creativity so if you’re
2:30
not necessarily looking for your one and
2:32
only but you are looking to entertain
2:33
yourself a bit there are apps where you
2:35
can draw a picture as a first message
2:37
rather than having to use any words you
2:39
can just send like an artistic rendering
2:40
of something that’s pretty cool um then
2:42
there’s apps that are tied more to the
2:44
instant gratification of like video and
2:47
so you can jump right into either like a
2:48
video or an audio chat room and begin
2:51
engaging with people or you can just use
2:53
video profiles as the lead so it’s
2:55
almost like the tick tockification of
2:57
dating where you can just scroll through
2:58
different people’s video profiles and
3:00
there’s just so many possible options
3:02
for
3:03
how to engage nowadays with other people
3:06
in a romantic or even friendly setting
3:08
and i honestly wouldn’t know quite how
3:11
to begin because there’s so many
3:13
possible clearly options there i think
3:15
there’s like an interesting connection
3:17
between
3:18
how people think and learn differently
3:21
and those sort of styles is that
3:23
something that you think about in terms
3:25
of the dating apps i
3:27
don’t think
3:28
that any dating apps are particularly
3:30
good for people with adhd because
3:33
they’re already designed to be hyper
3:35
stimulating and to keep your attention
3:37
and to give you almost like that tunnel
3:39
vision where you can just get stuck
3:41
swiping forever
3:42
so one of the things that i check in
3:44
with every one of my clients is
3:47
how they prefer to engage with
3:49
tech because some people absolutely hate
3:53
it they hate typing they hate having to
3:55
record anything they hate uploading
3:56
things and for those people it’s
3:58
frequently the case that i’ll say let’s
3:59
start with the offline component let’s
4:01
start with finding events in your area
4:03
let’s start with understanding how your
4:04
friends refer you to people to possibly
4:07
date or be romantic with
4:09
when it comes to the apps themselves
4:10
when people have already established
4:12
like maybe they hate hosting events
4:13
they’re too nervous to attend events and
4:15
they’re too busy so they just want to be
4:16
very passive about it and let the apps
4:18
do most of the filtering and searching
4:20
the question then becomes like how do
4:21
you best see yourself getting distilled
4:24
into that two-dimensional space so are
4:26
you better with video are you more
4:27
dexterous with taking good photos are
4:29
you a writer and you really enjoy
4:31
writing and so for you maybe there’s a
4:33
profile with no caps to the number of
4:35
words you can use to describe yourself
4:37
ultimately my job here is to ensure that
4:39
someone has the best possible experience
4:41
and that they meet the people they’re
4:42
looking to meet and so part of that
4:44
experience is knowing like how do you
4:46
interface best with one of the apps
4:48
that’s out there or maybe a couple and
4:50
since there are so many options it
4:52
actually makes my job a little bit
4:53
easier because i typically can custom
4:56
tailor like someone’s experience to an
4:58
app that really works for them yeah i
5:00
love that
5:01
so
5:02
how did it all start what first inspired
5:04
you to get involved in the dating
5:06
industry in 2010
5:09
was trying to date on my campus and i
5:11
got so overwhelmed
5:13
by the process of making eyes with
5:15
people on campus like identifying people
5:17
i would be interested in and then having
5:18
to go through that process of
5:20
understanding are they single how do i
5:21
find that out do i have to approach them
5:24
and inconvenience them and i don’t
5:25
really want to be in the position of
5:26
just like asking people that all the
5:28
time because it feels like an awkward
5:30
way to even start a conversation
5:31
so i went online to okcupid and
5:34
i really enjoyed the process of
5:37
answering questions about myself and
5:39
learning more about my preferences
5:41
through that but i ended up going on
5:43
one date my first ever online date with
5:45
a 99 match and then we got into a five
5:48
and a half year relationship from that
5:50
and so that was like my first big aha
5:52
moment because i realized that dating
5:54
apps could take literally millions of
5:56
people from all around you who you
5:58
otherwise wouldn’t see or know anything
6:00
about their lives and say instead here’s
6:02
all the people who are most likely
6:04
compatible here’s all the ones who are
6:05
available
6:06
right now to respond to a message here’s
6:09
all the ones who you’re interested in
6:12
and it distills a million people down to
6:14
the one person on the screen and you
6:16
went from not knowing anyone around you
6:18
to having the perfect person right in
6:20
front of you but then after college i
6:22
moved back to my hometown which is a one
6:24
square mile town i go on okcupid and
6:27
there might be three total users in my
6:29
town i go on match maybe two more users
6:32
and
6:33
50 apps later i’m still
6:36
struggling to find are there any people
6:38
around me on these apps but originally i
6:42
really went heavy into the dating
6:44
industry because i was basically in this
6:47
confined space trying to date and having
6:49
to go to each different app there was in
6:51
order to find out if anyone was even on
6:53
here and then by the time i moved to new
6:55
york there were suddenly hundreds of
6:56
people on each of these apps if not
6:58
hundreds of thousands of people on each
7:00
of these apps
7:01
and it just became much more obvious to
7:04
me how powerful these tools were yeah
7:06
there’s so many entrepreneurial stories
7:08
that start with trying to solve a
7:10
problem for yourself
7:11
and then seeing if that applies to
7:13
others as well so the reason i got into
7:16
doing paid dating coaching is that a
7:18
friend after talking to me for about
7:19
five hours about her ex she was like
7:22
steve i pay my therapist over a hundred
7:24
dollars an hour to listen to me talk
7:26
about my ex and i just talked to you for
7:28
five hours like you need to capture this
7:30
valley like i’ve
7:32
either i wasted five hours of your time
7:34
where i need to pay you for this time
7:35
because
7:36
there’s no reason you should have been
7:37
the one listening to me for five hours
7:39
what a good friend
7:41
the fun part is that it’s also been like
7:42
an iterative process my first profile
7:44
wasn’t that great and i’ve now made over
7:48
you know a thousand updates to
7:50
at least my okcupid but then you know
7:52
for the other 250 profiles each of those
7:54
i update on a so much work it is a lot
7:58
of work and that’s partially why i am
8:01
better able to serve people though it’s
8:02
because i’ve done the work of being
8:04
annoyed at every step of the way for
8:05
every app in order to
8:07
know at the very least is this worth
8:09
using is this one that will help people
8:11
well i would love to hear more about
8:14
what a typical day looks like for you
8:16
and also like how adhd shows up for you
8:19
at work and in your day-to-day life
8:21
oh man i feel like you didn’t even have
8:23
to ask the second one because the first
8:25
is going to reveal it very quickly
8:27
so
8:28
i have
8:30
on a typical day like i’ve learned to do
8:32
a much better job throughout the
8:34
pandemic with establishing boundaries on
8:36
my time and as i transition primarily
8:39
into coaching i now have only three days
8:41
a week that i formally do my coaching
8:43
and that’s like tuesday wednesday
8:44
thursday so i’ve actually managed to
8:46
save my mondays and fridays for other
8:48
work and other projects and without that
8:51
coaching could easily just take over my
8:53
week and so
8:54
the way my days are structured is that i
8:56
let my clients book on my calendar for a
8:58
finite range of times during tuesday to
9:01
thursday and so that’s really all i
9:03
focus on those days nothing else can
9:05
really enter the calendar other than
9:06
client calls i let my mondays and
9:09
fridays be the days when i work on all
9:10
the other projects that are in the queue
9:12
and that’s where the adhd comes in
9:14
because there’s a lot of projects that
9:16
i’ve started and then potentially not
9:18
finished i’ll make a little bit of
9:19
headway and then get distracted for
9:21
instance i have a second season on my
9:22
podcast for which i’ve recorded all the
9:24
episodes and edited about half or three
9:27
quarters of the episodes but that’s been
9:28
like a year of work that has been start
9:31
and stop because in addition to the
9:33
podcast i also have been
9:35
working on several simultaneous blog
9:37
posts um 160 simultaneous blog posts
9:41
so it’s
9:43
easy to get distracted from one by
9:44
working on the other and it all feels
9:46
productive but it’s also
9:48
hard to motivate myself to even choose
9:50
which one because it’s not like i
9:52
necessarily feel that any one of them is
9:54
the most important i feel like they’re
9:56
all important because they’re all
9:58
responses to real client needs and
10:01
questions that friends and clients have
10:03
come up with that i haven’t answered to
10:05
and i want to give that answer out to
10:07
the world because i’ve solved the
10:09
problem and it’s just a matter of now
10:11
sharing it but deciding which one to
10:13
share which one to finalize getting to
10:15
the point of finalization that’s the
10:17
real challenge and that’s where the adhd
10:19
tends to kick in you brought up a couple
10:22
true adhd things there in terms of like
10:24
starting and not finishing projects
10:25
prioritization motivation
10:28
for listeners that might not necessarily
10:30
be aware of why that might be an adhd
10:33
thing do you want to give your own
10:35
description or how it feels for you to
10:37
like be experiencing those types of
10:40
symptoms
10:41
it’s honestly hard to describe sometimes
10:43
i’ll literally schedule my day by the
10:45
hour as soon as i’ve started something
10:48
if i’m really in the zone with it then i
10:50
won’t want to stop and then jump into
10:52
something else and so if i schedule two
10:55
hours for a blog post it may be the case
10:57
that the first hour is me just trying to
11:00
do some extra research for it and then
11:02
suddenly the two hours are already up
11:04
and i’ve yet to type a word
11:07
and then maybe i’ll have in the last
11:09
five minutes thought to myself okay i
11:10
can really i need to get at least a
11:12
paragraph in and then the five minutes
11:14
becomes 25 minutes and now i’ve already
11:16
eaten into the next time slot and then
11:18
i’m in a moment okay i’m going to cancel
11:20
this next thing because i don’t have
11:21
time for it anymore but maybe i can
11:24
start early on the thing after it but
11:26
then i’m in the point of decision
11:27
fatigue because i have to now decide
11:30
whether to stop doing the thing i was
11:31
already productive in or start doing the
11:33
thing i had scheduled and in that moment
11:35
of decision fatigue i start to get a
11:37
little bit of anxiety and
11:39
i lose the motivation to work on either
11:41
one because now my core decision is
11:42
deciding which one and then i will
11:44
typically in that moment
11:46
do some of the dangerous low hanging
11:48
fruit of checking so by then i’ll
11:51
probably have received upwards of 20 30
11:53
emails i may have gotten another
11:55
15 to 20 texts or i used to get on
11:58
average 400 plus notifications across
12:00
the 500 apps on my phone
12:02
and that’s just on my phone that’s not
12:04
even my immediate environment presently
12:07
cat sitting and so there’s two cats that
12:09
will happily just come in want some pets
12:11
and jump on my keyboard you know there’s
12:13
there’s a lot of
12:14
possible distractions that go beyond
12:16
just what’s on my phone what’s on my
12:18
computer what’s in my immediate
12:19
environment
12:20
i
12:21
you know i’ve been a super connector for
12:23
10 years now so there’s just thousands
12:26
of people who may be in my city at any
12:27
given time reaching out to say hey let’s
12:29
go get coffee let’s hang out
12:31
there’s just so many possible avenues
12:34
that my attention can travel on some of
12:36
which are considered productive some of
12:38
which are distracting but also sometimes
12:41
produce
12:42
the exact fodder that then goes into my
12:44
work
12:45
you know like following up on a message
12:47
thread and going on a creative date can
12:48
then become fodder for the next article
12:51
about dates you can do in new york and
12:53
so it’s really hard to know was this
12:55
productive was this distracting i’m just
12:58
constantly in that cycle i’m glad that
12:59
i’ve gotten that out of being a 24 7
13:01
problem now that i’ve created the
13:03
coaching world where like that’s three
13:05
days of my week in which i don’t think
13:06
about the other projects but what that
13:08
means is now i can only think about the
13:10
other projects on two days a week and so
13:12
because i’ve established these healthier
13:13
boundaries it’s actually been
13:15
devastating to my productivity because
13:18
there’s not enough hours anymore i was
13:20
actually going to ask you more about
13:22
this time boundary idea and you said
13:24
that it’s improved a lot so i’m
13:26
interested to hear
13:28
what it looked like before and then what
13:30
changed
13:31
there were many moments when i decided
13:33
this is not sustainable i think the
13:35
worst one was when i was sleeping
13:37
about two to four hours a night working
13:40
20 hour days navigating to a different
13:42
apartment every day
13:44
to live because i didn’t have a
13:46
stable space going on dates still amidst
13:49
all of that those were the moments when
13:51
i realized like something had to change
13:53
here and so little by little i would try
13:55
to make changes sometimes involving
13:58
slightly more stable housing sometimes
14:00
involving trying to sleep more that’s
14:03
always a hard one especially when i
14:05
didn’t have boundaries with the work i
14:08
was doing because if it was the choice
14:10
between going to bed at 10 pm or
14:12
spending an extra four hours finishing a
14:15
blog post previous me would 100 of the
14:18
time finish the blog post and then i’d
14:20
ship the blog post and i’d feel good now
14:22
i’ve had to come to grips with this idea
14:25
that some things just won’t ship and
14:26
that’s okay or they won’t ship this week
14:28
or this year and that’s still okay
14:31
it previously was not a thing i’d
14:33
consider i i think i got used to from an
14:35
early age this idea that the higher the
14:37
stress of the environment the more
14:39
productive i was i associated high
14:41
stress and high frustration and like
14:44
physical like physiological
14:45
pain
14:46
with good for work and i think that’s
14:48
like the all-nighter culture the
14:49
hackathon culture of stay up for two
14:52
days in order to get the thing shipped
14:54
in college i don’t know that i wrote a
14:56
single paper without pulling an
14:57
all-nighter so like midnight is usually
14:59
when people would start going to sleep
15:00
and that would mean no more distractions
15:02
and so i’d start my work at midnight and
15:04
i’d finish it by whatever the papers do
15:06
it was my best way at the time for
15:08
coping with being distracted by all the
15:10
things all the time yeah just like
15:11
trying to escalate the intensity of the
15:14
deadline and isolate myself from others
15:17
so i could get into a zone of focus and
15:19
so now
15:20
like that carried over into my
15:21
professional life in a way that was
15:23
sometimes great
15:24
yeah i’ve actually heard this idea of
15:26
staying up all night from quite a few
15:28
different people that i’ve talked to
15:31
and
15:32
often they’ve talked about
15:34
procrastinating until the last minute or
15:37
only really feeling motivated to start
15:39
right at the end or super close to the
15:41
deadline
15:42
yeah and it’s hard to find proper
15:44
sources of motivation because i found it
15:46
real out early on that money is not a
15:48
motivator for me if you say i’ll give
15:50
you 100 to do this thing i’m not going
15:51
to do the thing that’s not what makes me
15:54
wake up and say this is the priority for
15:56
today
15:57
i’m still trying to learn what actually
15:58
like the user’s gonna ask what is the
16:00
motivator honestly the
16:02
i think i don’t like disappointing
16:04
people and so when i have a calendar
16:07
event with another person tied to it
16:09
such that if i didn’t show up then
16:11
they’d be disappointed that would be
16:13
like my one of my highest motivators
16:15
that’s why i like the coaching work is
16:16
because the core thing that i have to do
16:19
my core responsibility is to show up i
16:21
have to be present on the call with the
16:22
person who’s on the other end yeah
16:24
someone’s relying on you yeah and that’s
16:26
that for me is really motivating and as
16:28
soon as i see that they’re confirmed for
16:30
the calendar invite i know that i’m
16:32
going to make it whereas if i make a
16:33
calendar invite to myself and say we’re
16:36
going to work on a blog post from two to
16:37
four on monday that
16:39
i am terrible at respecting my own
16:42
personal invites yeah i might do a lot
16:44
of other things which is the weird form
16:47
of like productive procrastination that
16:49
i’ve learned over the years where i
16:51
could put two things on my calendar that
16:54
i’m supposed to be doing and then i do
16:55
20 things that are not that but that
16:57
were somehow also seemingly useful
17:00
the alternative and i don’t know if you
17:02
have a word that you might use for this
17:04
but like when you put 50 things on a one
17:07
day list none like you expect maybe to
17:09
get done five i don’t know if that’s
17:10
just overbooking or being over eager
17:12
over aggressive is it trying to add too
17:14
many things in order to then create
17:16
urgency because there’s so many i have
17:18
to start doing some now i don’t know if
17:19
there’s a word for that but that’s a
17:21
separate problem and then it becomes a
17:23
problem of feeling overwhelmed and not
17:26
being able to prioritize necessarily
17:28
yeah it may be that i want that feeling
17:30
because that’s what helped me feel like
17:32
i can get more done but yeah i think
17:34
over the past couple months i have
17:35
gotten a little bit better uh like i’ll
17:38
put a few check boxed items for each day
17:40
of the week and then
17:42
eventually just get to them so you said
17:44
that you are a super connector
17:47
i want to hear a little bit more about
17:48
that and what that means to you and how
17:51
you apply that to the work that you do
17:54
i look at a super connector as someone
17:55
who can refer almost like a community to
17:57
another community so instead of being
17:59
like the head of one community you just
18:00
network with a bunch of other connectors
18:03
what that means at least for me is if
18:05
someone says i need dating help i’ll
18:08
usually check in and say like do you
18:09
also need
18:10
job help do you need help finding
18:12
friends because those friends you find
18:14
could then help you find dates and so
18:16
the super connecting comes in just by
18:17
having this multi-dimensional approach
18:20
where you think not just about one
18:22
domain of like friendship or dating or
18:24
jobs but all collectively and then you
18:26
think of who are the people who can best
18:28
be the routers to get this one person’s
18:31
needs met these relationships can come
18:33
from anywhere
18:34
in the case of dating someone who turns
18:37
you down may be doing it for a very good
18:39
reason maybe they recognize that they’re
18:41
not the right fit for you given what you
18:42
both want but they could then turn
18:44
around and say you should date my friend
18:46
if we have good relationships all around
18:48
us it makes it really easy for all the
18:50
people we get to know to over the span
18:53
of many years continue being meaningful
18:56
and relevant in our lives by tagging us
18:58
by inviting us to things by even just
19:01
like sharing thoughtful words if we put
19:03
out a request anywhere and so for me i
19:05
just i love that these relationships we
19:07
build get to continue being fruitful
19:09
throughout our lives
19:10
so you mentioned unconventional living
19:13
and cat sitting and moving around a lot
19:15
so i would love to hear a little bit
19:17
more about that lifestyle and how you do
19:20
it and why you do it sure so the first i
19:24
guess reason for why is just lack of
19:27
money like if they’re if you don’t have
19:28
the ability to afford rent and you don’t
19:31
have the ability to afford even a hotel
19:33
room then the question is what’s the
19:35
next step if you don’t want to sleep on
19:36
the street and so for me
19:38
learning quickly how to find people who
19:41
needed cat dog or apartment sitting was
19:44
really useful because if someone needed
19:46
a month of dog sitting that meant i
19:47
could go a month without paying rent
19:49
somewhere yeah it wasn’t even like i had
19:51
an option of paying rent somewhere
19:52
because sometimes i lived for several
19:54
years on less than seven thousand
19:56
dollars a year and so
19:58
i would post on facebook saying things
20:00
like who needs a cat sitter dog sitter
20:01
apartment sitter and then i’d also ask
20:04
almost any person i met to just keep me
20:06
in mind for
20:07
any time they hear someone say i need a
20:09
cat sitter a dog sitter an apartment
20:11
sitter i’m going away i want people to
20:13
associate those words with me so that
20:15
they can then reach out to me and say oh
20:17
click call steve and sure enough that
20:19
started happening pretty regularly
20:21
because i wasn’t charging people and if
20:23
you wanted like a dog boarding in new
20:25
york for a week i think it goes to like
20:27
400 or more a week wow and if i can do
20:30
that for a month i just save someone
20:32
1600 or more and for me i get a place to
20:34
live for a month and it’s a pretty good
20:36
exchange yeah the challenge is that some
20:37
people need it for like three days and
20:39
then the next person is like a two-hour
20:41
commute away and they did it for one day
20:43
and so a lot of my time was spent just
20:46
doing this arbitrage situation of trying
20:48
to find out who needs what and when and
20:49
how do i get there in time and i didn’t
20:51
have an apartment so i carried all the
20:53
things i owned just in a backpack and
20:55
that was a seven year span where i had
20:58
over 20 different keys to apartments
21:00
around the city because some people
21:01
needed things at different times i did
21:03
some friends just they’d move to a new
21:05
place and the first thing they do is
21:06
call me up hand me a key and say you’ll
21:08
use this later like
21:09
and yeah i felt like the architecture of
21:11
the matrix where you have the 100 keys
21:13
and that’s always been my philosophy is
21:16
i i don’t want to impose upon people i
21:18
just want to be useful and let the fact
21:21
that i’ve oriented my life toward
21:22
meeting thousands of people and getting
21:24
to know their needs
21:26
you just made me think steve i’m going
21:27
away in a few weeks i have to call you
21:30
do you think your adhd helps you be a
21:32
super connector
21:34
honestly i think it’s one of the core
21:36
reasons why i’m able to do it and part
21:39
of that is that anytime i’m
21:41
procrastinating my form of
21:43
procrastination is to scroll through
21:45
facebook and
21:46
find out what people need because people
21:48
typically post there with things like
21:51
i’m going away i need this thing or i’m
21:53
considering hiring a matchmaker i’m
21:55
looking for this there’s so many
21:56
different categories of relationship
21:58
need that people will willingly and
22:00
publicly post about and it’s a really
22:03
easy way to be distracted but it’s also
22:05
a superpower when
22:07
i can just i’ve done this where i set
22:08
aside an entire day to only be on
22:10
facebook answering people’s needs and in
22:12
the span of a day i can connect 100
22:15
people to the thing they need next and
22:17
in so doing essentially cultivate 100
22:20
new relationships and be the point of
22:23
contact for 100 people but yeah i think
22:24
the adhd component there is that i allow
22:28
every new ping to be a distraction that
22:30
sends me into another rabbit hole of
22:33
connecting people because it’s not like
22:34
there are games like i don’t put games
22:36
on my phone because it’s too dangerous a
22:38
distraction i let my form of preferred
22:41
distraction be
22:43
helping people and so every new text
22:45
every single message they are
22:47
distracting and my brain automatically
22:49
goes to them as they’re the maximum
22:51
urgency but also the byproduct of that
22:54
is this kind of super connector
22:56
lifestyle where
22:57
i can be relied upon by a lot of people
22:59
to do a lot of different things and it’s
23:01
formed part of my identity yeah i think
23:04
it’s so cool that you can be there for
23:05
so many people so for anyone listening
23:08
that’s interested in becoming a coach
23:10
and they have thinking learning
23:12
differences what advice would you give
23:14
them about where to start
23:16
so i think the
23:18
most important thing to remember is that
23:21
people are willing to spend money on
23:24
things that save them the time or effort
23:26
of having to do those things themselves
23:29
and so
23:30
i learned this from doing
23:32
coaching for
23:33
individuals who let’s say they make five
23:35
hundred dollars an hour but
23:37
for them to have to spend an hour
23:39
swiping on tinder they’ve essentially
23:41
lost five hundred dollars if they spend
23:43
two hours on tinder or as the average
23:44
user seven hours that can be over two
23:47
thousand dollars of lost value if they
23:48
didn’t get a date from it and so when a
23:50
matchmaker approaches that person and
23:52
says hey i’ll do all this work for you
23:55
for a thousand dollars then the person’s
23:57
gonna say of course i’ll pay you a
23:58
thousand dollars to do this
24:00
when you save people time or save the
24:02
money they’re willing to compensate you
24:05
for a percentage of that time and money
24:07
saved
24:08
and so in coaching
24:10
i can essentially tell people you might
24:12
go out and try to start dating you could
24:14
be spending 20 hours a week or more
24:17
going on dates messaging people swiping
24:19
on these apps
24:20
and that’s a lot of wasted time
24:23
and what’s also the opportunity cost of
24:25
you going a year or two years or in some
24:27
cases for some of the people i work with
24:28
10 years of just struggling through
24:31
which app to use making a profile not
24:33
getting matches constantly swiping and
24:36
feeling worse and worse about themselves
24:38
what would that have been worth to you
24:39
let’s say you can save someone a lot of
24:41
time so in the case of this is literally
24:44
for any coaching thing whatsoever like
24:45
if someone’s struggling with something
24:47
for
24:48
weeks months or years on end you can put
24:50
a dollar value on that and if you can
24:52
help them through that struggle then you
24:54
can capture that value
24:56
the main thing is to pick the thing that
24:58
you want to be teaching
25:00
or that you know more than anyone else
25:02
about
25:03
keep challenging yourself to learn more
25:04
about that and keep challenging yourself
25:06
to help people solve their problems and
25:08
so
25:09
i helped hundreds of people with free
25:11
dating advice literally even putting a
25:13
sign in washington square park like free
25:15
dating advice and i’ll put a little
25:16
blanket forget about that and people can
25:18
just come and receive advice and i get
25:20
to learn who needs what and so people
25:22
will say i need help with this thing i
25:23
need help with this thing and then i can
25:25
start learning here’s the common things
25:26
people need help with and did my
25:29
suggestions work that’s an important
25:31
piece too you have to know that you’re
25:32
actually solving the problem
25:34
and after you’ve gotten to the point
25:36
where you can reliably solve a problem
25:37
then you can either sell your time
25:39
solving the problem and so for someone
25:42
starting out it’s i don’t want to say
25:43
that you should just go into dating
25:45
coaching because that’s not necessarily
25:47
going to be someone’s strength from the
25:48
get-go but if there is something that
25:50
you’ve helped people with dozens of
25:52
times then you’re probably on the right
25:54
track toward being able to monetize that
25:59
thanks so much steve
26:01
thank you this has been wonderful
26:08
this has been how’d you get that job a
26:10
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[Music]
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you

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