Social Savvy Sage

How exactly does your coaching work?

The Text Messaging Critique and Personal Profile Review are delivered via email. After you submit your payment, I’ll send you a questionnaire where you put in the appropriate information and attach images as needed. Once you send that back to me, I will send you my analysis within five business days.

The Practice Date is conducted via two video calls. After you submit your payment, I’ll send you the full details, but here’s a breakdown of the steps:

You’ll submit your dating profile (similar to the Personal Profile Review process).
I’ll pair you with a coaching partner of your preferred gender, who is in a similar age bracket (if you’re 50 years old, pairing you with a 21-year-old coaching partner isn’t going to give you a good approximation of the potential dates you’ll go on).
I’ll share your dating profile with the coaching partner, and also give you a mock profile for said partner.
We’ll schedule a time where all three of us can meet.
During the call, you and the coaching partner will then interact as though you are on a date. I will be a silent observer.
Afterwards, I will review the recording and make notes.
We will then schedule a second video call to discuss your social skills during the practice date.

The Standalone Coaching Session is similar to the above, except we schedule just the one call. During that call, we can work on specific skills of your choosing, or I can offer suggestions on what you may benefit most from working on.

How long will it take for me to develop the eight Social Savvy Sage skills?

Well, that’s really hard to say. Remember, we’re building a foundation, not slapping paint on drywall. I’m not here to give you a patchwork solution for your social woes. I’m here to help you work on skills that literally took me 20 years to refine.

Having said that, please rest assured that I’m not in this to bleed you dry. If you prefer to be frugal, we can meet for a few sessions, get you a quick overview of the basics, and then I’ll send you away with some homework and tips for real-life practice. After that, you can reach out to me as desired if there’s anything specific you want to keep working on.

Yes, it’ll help to have someone actively coaching you on the basics. But once you get those basics down — that is to say, once your self-awareness is at a decent level — you can probably work on things yourself, without having to pay someone to coach you actively.

Ultimately, though, it’s up to you. I’m always here to help as needed. 🙂

Video calls, though? Is that going to be as effective as in-person meetings?

You’re right to be skeptical. Video calls are not the perfect medium for coaching, since they limit the amount of body language we can work on. However, I want to be conscious of the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic right now, and telecoaching will obviously be far safer than in-person meetings.

There is also the plus that we don’t have to be physically in the same city. You can be anywhere in the world, and I can still be your coach. I definitely consider that a win.

Either way, I will give you specific instructions on camera placement, so that we can optimize what we can see and therefore practice. Ultimately, my goal is to provide a safe and convenient environment for people who may not have the resources or desire to travel long distances to get in-person coaching. To that end, while video calls aren’t perfect, I can assure you they will work just fine for us.

With regards to dating coaching, do you only work with straight men and women?

The fundamental skills I teach are universal to pretty much everyone. But if you feel you have atypical needs or goals, drop me a line below, and I’ll be happy to work out a personalized plan with you.

Having said that, there may be specific instances where my experiences and background as a cis hetero male may not be applicable to you. If this happens, I will be upfront about the limitations in coaching that I may be able to offer.

So level with me. Where did learn all these skills?

If you read my story, you may remember me mentioning that I’m studious. My professional background also spans broad interests, so I’ve been able to synthesize concepts from a wide swathe of experiences and subjects.

Here are some of the topics I draw my teachings from:

Human behavior and relationships: my field of expertise as a Marriage and Family Therapist
Evolutionary biology: where I earned my PhD
Teaching: I was a high school teacher for eight years
Professional poker: where I learned, shall we say, “applied human psychology”
Customer service: yep, I worked in customer service for a few years, too
Linguistics and communications: professional training from all of the above roles
Public speaking: professional training while I was a teacher
Comedy writing: something fun I’ve done on the side for several years now
Dating and relationships writing: another side endeavor

This all sounds interesting, but I’m just not sure I’m ready to sign up for coaching yet …

Yep, I totally understand. If you’re not sure whether coaching is right for you (or more specifically, whether coaching with me is right for you), I offer a free consultation for us to get to know each other first. You can sign up for it here.

Alternatively, if you decide that you need therapy rather than coaching, please check out my Marriage and Family Therapy practice.

I have some other questions you didn’t answer here, you inconsiderate poop.

Sorry about that. If you have any other questions, comments, concerns, clarifications, rebuttals, etc., you can reach me via my Consultation page:

Consultation