This is the Empowered Caregiver Show.
If you are a caregiver or know someone who is,
this show is meant to uplift you through education and support,
while also lifting up every caregiver's invaluable role in society.
Now, here is the Empowered Caregiver and your host,
Liza Helen Brand.
You are listening to the Empowered Caregiver
and I am your host, Liza Helen Brand.
Today, I will be discussing dating as a caregiver.
As a woman approaching 50 and have been married for almost 22 years,
this is completely foreign territory to me,
so I cannot wait to learn.
Now that I'm older, many of my friends, however,
have divorced through the years or unfortunately their loved ones has passed,
and I hear these stories of women going through this dating journey
and sounds terrifying.
I can totally understand why the term cat lady exists,
meaning that I would be much more likely to adopt a van full of cats,
or in my case, probably dogs, to be honest,
than to fill that void than I would be to go out and create a dating profile.
I get nervous even talking about it.
I know, however, that many people would prefer not to spend their golden years
with a golden retriever, but an actual human, or perhaps both.
So today, I have dating and relationship coach Noah Hyman
from datecoach.com with me to tell us how this dating thing can be done right.
We will be talking about body confidence, dating apps,
and everything that that entails, conversational techniques,
and the science we now know behind dating,
and how to navigate long distance relationships.
Hi Noah, thank you so much for joining me today.
My first question for you.
What is a dating coach?
Right, so someone like me helps a person accomplish their dating goals.
So for most of my clients, that's a loving partner.
So we'd establish their goals, we'd understand their circumstances,
we'd determine what options would make their goal more likely to happen,
and then we'd decide what to do first.
And then it's a mix of empowering a client to make changes,
giving them scientifically precise advice to make it happen,
and occasionally holding them accountable if they're daily dallian.
Oh, that's good.
I think you would need that if I was your client.
I would need some accountability in this process,
because I think I'd find myself running in the opposite direction,
and it can't be that hard and scary.
You're going to, you're going to enlighten me on this,
and I'm going to leave feeling good about it.
Hopefully not having to use these dating skills,
being married for more than two decades,
but at least I will know how to go about it.
So your website allows people to schedule a free intro session
to discuss topics like you mentioned, romantic goals.
As a caregiver, my goal's most days is just to survive the day.
So what the hack are relationship goals?
Well, to figure out somebody's romantic goals or relationship goals
if they're already in a relationship and want to work on that relationship,
if they're trying to find a partner,
we have to step into the perfect romantic world.
So the types of people that they're attracted to are plentiful,
and all of those people wipe my client,
and there are no obstacles.
There's no distance separating them.
There's no shortness of time, or energy, or money, or health.
And then the question is, what would your perfect romantic life look like?
For a lot of people, that's a very difficult and surprising question to start with.
They have considered so much, but not exactly what do they want,
because they felt so limited for so long.
And then we delve into, so what does that look like in terms of
like the sources of joy in that relationship?
Is it laughing together or traveling together or cuddling together?
What would be the dynamics of that relationship?
Oh, we'd equally share the burdens of raising our cats and our kids.
What would be some of the personal traits of that person?
They'd be really ambitious, and I'd be more of the laid back one,
or what would be some physical traits of them.
Okay, I like someone who's taller, and a bit older,
and well dressed, and sensual.
And we go through all that, and then we have we find it,
and have it connect with that person.
How do we find it?
Speaking with Noah Hyman from datecoach.com,
during your free introductory session,
you stated that you would discuss your coaching methods.
What are coaching methods, and can you tell me a little bit more about that?
Absolutely, so most coaches follow something akin to the grow method.
It's also called seed sometimes.
Grow stands for goals, which we just talked about,
and then realities or your circumstances.
And always the options and values of what will we do.
That's kind of a template for us,
but everybody has a very different style.
It's incumbent on the coach to really balance the coaching,
enabling the person to feel empowered,
and so that's going to be the coach talking maybe 20% of the time,
and the client talking more 80% of the time,
and that feeling a little bit more akin to therapy,
that kind of style,
or when do we really just need advice?
Okay, what does the data say about what my profile should look like,
or my photo should look like,
or my opening message should look like,
or what are some conversational techniques I feel so awkward on my first date?
Those kind of things, when it's now the coaches is kind of guiding you through,
not just what works in general, but also trying to what works for you.
I don't know if you know the movie, Kitch,
but that's a different thing.
That's pickup artist,
that's Will Smith helping Kevin James,
suppress his true personality,
his dorky, wonderful self,
to try to be super cool and pick up the girl.
I don't do that, right?
It's authentic coaching.
It's how you can succeed in the long term,
because this is going to continue hopefully after that first date for many years together.
Love it.
That makes perfect sense to me.
You are a younger guy, so I'm not sure how familiar you are with this whole caregiving role
and caregiving world,
but let me paint a picture for you what caregiving looks like for many people.
There are people who are typically stretched very thin,
have little time available,
and may be living with the person that they care for.
You know, that role does not have an end date in sight typically,
and most of the time I feel like we all want to go to bed before PM.
So with that in mind,
what would you tell me if I came to you and said that was my circumstance?
Besides, perhaps,
have you ever considered just getting a cat?
The wonderful thing is that there are so many ways to find a partner these days, right?
And it's my job to help you figure out which one is most likely or ones
are most likely to succeed for you, right?
It could be choosing local,
you know, social events that you like, you know, the bowling league or, you know,
a soup kitchen or some type of church group or something.
It could be a really a single specific kind of event like speed dating.
It could be if you're a real introvert and you're getting out there in any way is really daunting.
Well, maybe you still have friends and how do you enlist them to help you, right?
How can you ask them?
How can you set them up to succeed on your behalf in setting up with somebody else?
And then now as half of people in the United States are doing,
there's online dating and that's very daunting and very unpleasant for over almost everybody,
but it can really succeed.
Tell me on to take a step back.
Tell me about the Friends approach because I feel like I would gravitate towards that.
Here, guys, here's what I'm trying to accomplish.
Go help me.
Right.
A lot of my clients are reticent to ask their friends for help in this, right?
They feel like it's a burden to ask, hey, do you know anybody who might be single and, you know,
a man between 50 and 70 or whatever their criteria are?
In reality, if you step into your friend's shoes, it's not a burden, right?
A burden is when you're asking them, hey, can I borrow 20 bucks or hey, can you keep this secret, right?
This is, you are giving them the gift of showing, hey, I value your opinion.
I trust you enough to expose this kind of vulnerable side of myself that's like a little lonely or a little bit lost.
So a lot of people are going to really appreciate being asked.
But beyond asking them, you have to specify what do you want, right?
What does this person look like?
And then how do you want to be set up, right?
Do you want a phone number and you're in a text with that person or do you really want to be like,
old-fashioned blind date, right?
Almost nobody does that anymore, but if that's you, that's you.
The other person has to agree as well, right?
And then afterwards, if somebody does something this nice for you, thank them, right?
I see it too many people.
Oh, they said me up, but this person was a loser.
Well, they didn't think that person was a loser.
They wouldn't have set you up with that person, right?
So don't insult them.
You know, thank them.
And then you can give them the constructive, like, ooh, when I said that they should be kind of unencumbered,
that included that they should be already divorced.
Okay, I'm still happy.
I'm just talking about it so I felt the whole day, right?
There's all these horror stories, but remember, they were trying for you, right?
So reward that and keep pivoting.
And, you know, if you have a bunch of friends and they know a bunch of other people,
you have this built-in group of a dating pool already set there for you.
You just have to combine it successfully.
I like that.
Mine it successfully and be appreciative because my first thought was,
well, how cool is that?
People love to tell the story.
You know, I introduced these two and now they're happily married.
And then I thought about the flip side of that.
I'm like, oh, no.
What I want to be associated with that, but you're trying.
You know, somebody asked something of you and you gave it a shot.
And that does make perfect sense because, assuming, if you're going to have the courage to ask somebody,
hey, do you know of anyone, it would be somebody I would assume that you would know well
and that would know you.
So it would, to me, seem like it could be a likely opportunity for them to be able to help you out.
What are some of the, what are some of the other avenues that you mentioned?
You know, things like speed dating, right?
It depends really where you are, right?
If you're in a big city, those things are plentiful, right?
And these days, they're really, you know, specific.
You can find, I'm in Brooklyn, right?
In Brooklyn, you can find speed dating.
That's like board game center, right?
Where you're playing Django together or you're playing, you know, some other like,
I don't know, picture grand grams or whatever it's called.
And they, you know, or it's two on two instead of one on one, right?
If you're in a very rural area, right?
It might not be as available.
But then there's, you know, there's always the apps, right?
Older people tend to call them websites.
But, you know, the younger people call them the app.
And we're getting to that a lot more.
Yes, they're, they're called apps.
And when you said the rural, you probably know the name of it.
But there's a commercial around here like LonelyFarmers.com or something of those.
And that's what we are going on for us here on Wisconsin.
You're listening to the empowered caregiver.
I'm your host, Liza Helen Brandt.
Today I'm talking about all things dating.
When we return, we're going to discuss navigating online dating.
You're listening to the empowered caregiver.
And I'm your host, Liza Helen Brandt.
Today I'm here with Noah Hyman from datecoach.com.
And we have been talking about dating and how to put yourself out there as an older adult.
Ah, it scares me to think about it.
But I know it's not that scary.
And Noah's already made me feel a little more confident about it.
But let's dive into dating apps.
Okay, Noah, what makes the perfect dating app profile?
And what do you use for photos?
Yeah, so there are dozens of criteria for each of these.
So let me just give you a few examples to start.
So if you're writing your profile narrative for a male audience,
about 50 words is about the right line.
And if you're writing for a female audience, about 100 words.
That's what the data says.
The problem with writing too little, if you just write a few words,
is that you seem either not to care or not to be an introspective person.
And also, you don't give them enough to have in common with you.
They want to send you a message that says something like,
you like horses too, but what do you love about horses?
And not just a shallow hot photo.
Since they don't want to feel shallow and superficial,
they might not message you at all if you have a really short profile.
The problem with too long a profile is it can seem either vain or really high maintenance.
And also, most people don't read them.
And if they don't read them, then they're nervous to ask you anything.
For fear that you'll say, please read part five.
Yeah.
So another instance where you're just not going to get the message in the first place.
You also really want to fake phrase everything very positively.
You can say, I'm ready for a relationship that one comes long
or I'm open to a relationship.
But not I want a relationship.
Want is a lack of something.
Or even words like, where was my man?
You also, whatever you're not into or into, say what you're into.
I tend to like women over 50 years old rather than no women under 50, please.
As for, I'll give you a little example.
I had a client the other day who was on a date.
And the guy who's on a date with was staring at him.
But he wasn't noticing that.
And the guy was started even mild touching, right?
And trying to pull his hand onto him, you know, just shoulder stuff.
And my client and my client's head, he's still, he's not into me.
He's not into me.
Finally, the guy's like, can we go back to your place, right?
And he's like, why am I hitting you overhead with a frying pan?
My client said, well, you said you don't like to hook up on a first date.
Now, I said, I didn't say that.
Well, yes.
Well, let's check my profile.
And they looked at it and said, I don't like to trade shirtless photos.
All right.
That mixed with all the self-down in my client's head and turns into, he doesn't like me.
So we have to keep it positive, right?
Then in your photos, what do you think is the most attractive facial expression, according to the data?
What do you think?
I have no idea.
I just think of the corny school photos, like with the forced smile or something.
Right.
I don't know.
Not a smile.
It's not a smile.
And it's also not a sexy face, like a smolder or something.
It's an open mouth laugh.
That's the most inviting.
It's not about being the sexiest.
You want to be attractive, but also approachable, right?
The photos, another thing in the photos is across the photos.
You want to show an authentic breath of who you are, right?
So you can be on a blazer or a gown in one of them.
And then in another one, you can be casual with your friends.
And then another playing with your dog, right?
Then the viewer is likely to have at least one look that they feel like, ah, I fit in into this person's life.
Oh, that makes perfect sense.
And you can see your personality, the different sides of you.
Let me take a step back on the friend's one.
Now, I wish I would have gone on a dating website and just been a creeper for a minute just to get into some supreme of reference here.
But I know I've heard through friends, you've got the pictures where you crop out the ex-wife or the whatever.
Or you get a picture with the whole group of people and you don't even know which the person is that you know it posted it.
So what is the, what's your advice when other people are involved in the pictures?
Are you saying that's okay?
Not okay?
Well, your main profile photo, it should be you alone, not something cropped, not something with other people.
And certainly not something with one person who might be your current or past partner, right?
And no selfies, right?
So I often guide my clients through how to, you know, most of my clients are not in New York, right?
They're around the country or even they're in Spain, right?
And we're doing it via Zoom and I'm talking them through, hey, you're going to have, okay, your best friend Cindy, she's going to be our photographer.
Her Samsung or iPhone or whatever is good enough.
And what are our poses?
What is our lighting?
What is the depth of field on the camera?
What do we do with our hands?
All of those things to make us really confident in our photos and make it look awesome, but not like a photo shoot.
Make it look natural.
Make it look natural.
Ooh, somebody would have their work cut out for them with me.
It can be done.
It can be done.
You're listening to the power caregiver and I am your host, Liza Helen Brandt today.
I am talking about all things dating with Noah, I'm in from, oh, I lost, I lost my notes datecoach.com, right?
Datecoach.com.
Sorry about that, I didn't want to get, I didn't want to get it wrong.
Okay, so I had to think about this for a minute since I've been married for over two decades.
What would I say if I wanted to reach out to somebody on a dating app?
The only thing that I could really think of was, do you have any handyman skills?
And I know that's not going to be a good thing, a good thing to ask.
After I said that, I realized, now this is kind of sexist, but I thought that men were born with a set amount of handyman skills,
just like I'm sure men think women may be born with the ability to cook, but under my current circumstance,
I can tell you that is not the case, but I would assume that that's not a good thing to put on the dating app.
What do you do if you want to reach out to someone?
If you're sending your opening message, again, there's dozens of things that make it right.
I'll give you a few critical ones.
If you're writing to a man, 10 to 20 words.
If you're writing to a woman, 20 to 40.
And how do you choose whether it be on the shorter or longer end of that interval?
We'll base it on how short or long their profile narrative is.
And then you want to ask them an open-ended question that you actually want to know the answer to.
Based on their profile.
And even if they have really almost nothing written, maybe there's something in their photo.
So you see them with a dog.
Where do you like to take your dog around town and address them by their name and include your name?
That's a pretty good start.
Okay.
I'm going to rewind this just a little bit because now I'm feeling really terrible, though.
Seeking man with handyman skills.
But it kind of goes under my list of qualifications.
Is that even for you?
How do you ask those kind of things?
Things that are important to you.
And maybe it's not being with a partner that knows how to fix a toilet.
Maybe it's something different.
But you want to know that, right?
Out of the gate.
Are you just patient?
Yeah.
I think you want to ask them, but in an open-ended way.
Any questions aren't the ones that can't be answered in with one word.
So saying, are you handy?
That's pretty close.
They're going to say yes or no.
You can instead ask, what do you like doing for fun?
What are one or some of your things you're vendor at?
Those kind of things.
And you'll get a sense of it.
But some of it, right?
If you're just looking for a handyman and not a partner, it could be tough.
And maybe best on the first date rather than a message.
Right.
And maybe I should just hire a handyman, right?
And not find a handyman in a partner.
It's just those qualities.
It's just those things that you're looking for long-term.
And I can see where you're going with this.
Asking these kind of open-ended questions will pull that out eventually.
You're listening to empowered caregiver.
And I will be right back to talk all things dating.
You're listening to the empowered caregiver.
And I am your host, Liza Helen Brand.
I am here today with Noah Hyman from datecoach.com.
And we are talking about all things dating.
So we were talking a little bit about using dating apps.
If you missed that conversation, you can find it in the podcast format
at civicmedia.us.
It's also on Apple podcast, Spotify, and YouTube.
And I want to go back to the dating apps.
Because I know that's kind of the way that things are done for a lot of people these days.
So if a man was to approach me on a dating app, if I had my profile out there,
and they were to ask something as simple as what is your favorite color,
I would get a deer in the headlight look on my face.
And I swear to God, I probably would spend 45 minutes trying to find a clever way to answer that question.
Do you have any advice on replying when somebody reaches out to you?
And how do you create a meaningful connection online?
Yeah, I think to start, your reply should be authentic, right?
For me, I've never had a favorite color, and I'd say I like all the colors of the rainbow, right?
But whatever it is, remember that this is not, we are not pickup artists,
and we're not trying to get them, right?
We are trying to be ourselves and figure out whether we have a good connection here.
Because this, whoever you are, you have to sustain that for many years to come.
And if you're starting out all folksy, hey, I'm all folksy, but you're not that person,
it's going to go away, and if that person likes a folksy person, you're out of luck, right?
If on the other hand, you're kind of, oh, I'm better than a dumb, you know, British kind of,
you know, that's going to go away, and your folksy, this is going to come out, right?
So whatever it is, first be yourself, right?
Then when you're trying to build that connection, you know, the key is to switch out of the questions
that you don't care the answer to, right?
You know, your favorite color and, you know, how about those packers, right?
Like, yeah, I mean, if you're a huge packers fan, then like, talk about packers,
but if that's not you, and there's not that much to say about it,
move on to things you want to know the answer to.
What do you love about your hometown?
What kind of places could you imagine wanting to live in in the years to come?
Well, what is it about those places that excites you?
Those really let you get to know the person, and ultimately, you don't want to continue this forever online.
You want to meet, right?
So once you have established that you're interested enough to meet, go meet, choose something that's, you know,
low barrier entry, easy, short, a coffee, not expensive, right?
Not this whole elaborate date, so you can at least say, yeah, do we want a second date, right?
Get there and take it offline as quickly as possible.
All right, good advice.
I didn't even think about the initial getting to meet part.
You think short and sweet is that, is that kind of what you're thinking?
Yeah.
Okay.
It depends on you and them, and your circumstances, how part part you are, what, you know, time you have, right?
You know, if you're a caregiver, and it's only every third Saturday in the evening that you know you're free, right?
Well, it better be someone special who's going to get that one time, right?
Because usually you're going to spend it with friends, and if you're going to spend it with a guy, it better be pretty special.
You might spend it then more time online establishing, this is really exciting, or is it just a lot, right?
So it depends on your circumstance, but in general, if you're up to meet, what are you doing online?
Me, it's that, you know, until you've met, it's not real.
It's just, it's just, you know, little bits on a computer, right?
I like that.
Until you've met, it's not real.
I'm talking with Noah Hyman from datecoach.com.
Dating is not only in art but a science.
You state that you use F-M-R-I research to improve confidence and conversation.
That sounds interesting.
Can you tell me more about that?
Absolutely.
So, you know, we all know what MRI machines are, right?
They see inside of your body.
Well, F-M-R-I functional MRI can be used on the brain to see what parts are being used and to what extent.
Like if you ask someone, what was the color of your high school locker?
The memory side should light up.
If you instead see the creative side lighting up, they might be lying, right?
So, in the test that I'm, I'm referring to here with this F-M-R-I.
What they did was they exposed people to a lot of stimuli, video, right?
That would either make them feel negative emotions.
You know, these would be fear, disgust, anxiety, loneliness, those kinds of things.
They also expose those things that make them feel positive, right?
Excited, tranquility, togetherness, gratitude, those kinds of things.
Then they asked these people to label their emotions, to say out loud what they were feeling, right?
And what do you think, Liza?
If you had really negative emotions, you're exposed to some horrible things.
And then you say, I'm feeling whatever it is fear or disgust or something.
Do you think your negative emotion would get stronger or weaker?
I think it would get stronger, but I really have no idea.
I would have thought so too, surprisingly weaker, right?
And then for your positive emotions, if you're feeling gratitude or excitement and you say it,
would it get stronger or weaker?
I'm going to stick with stronger.
Stronger is correct in this case, right?
So, it turns out that whenever you're labeling something, if it's a negative feeling,
it becomes less negative, it's the positive feeling, it becomes more positive.
It's always a useful thing.
So we can use this in a couple of ways, right?
We use this in psyching ourselves up, right?
I'm anxious on this date.
I know I'm anxious, I always get anxious for these things.
That's okay, right?
Or I'm so excited for this.
I'm excited, I'm excited, right?
You can also use it as conversational technique, right?
If you're the person who's identifying so that it sounds like your mother is really important to you.
Or, oh, it sounds like you really miss that cat or whatever.
It sounds like you get really excited about your self-ball league or whatever.
They're going to start to associate that less negative and more positive emotion with talking to you.
So it's a powerful tool that way.
You know, another thing that almost everybody has problem with is body confidence, right?
But it doesn't matter if you are fit or young or how able-bodied you are.
And there are many techniques I use with my clients to build up their body confidence.
Not just so they feel better, but so they're more confident in data.
Right?
Liza, have you seen a movie Goodwill Hunting?
I have, but I don't.
It's been a while.
It's been a while.
Okay, so Robin Williams plays a therapist in it.
And he is remembering his wife who has passed.
And he's remembering, he says, it's actually a very famous line because he says it.
And it was as ad-libbed and the camera shakes because the camera man's laughing.
He didn't realize how funny this would be.
And he's like, oh, she used to fart in her sleep.
My wife, she used to fart so loud, she'd wake the dog up.
And she used to wake up and she'd say, was that you?
And I'd say, oh, yeah, sorry, honey, that was me.
I didn't have the heart to tell her.
And man, I missed that about her, right?
And he's not saying that he's into gas, right?
It's not something to worry.
It's, he's saying this little private little special thing about her cute and change it.
And he even misses it, right?
When I think about my partner, I have this, you know, real Chubby, Staten Island accent, husband.
He's got a big bald spot in the gap between his front teeth, right?
Those things, if he, if they don't bother him, let him bother me.
In fact, they're part of him for me, right?
If I can snap my fingers, I couldn't remove those things.
So with my client, we talk through our whole body, everything but our personality.
So we can talk about our voice, we can talk about our gate, our style.
And talk through it, pretending to be our future loving partner, talk through each part.
And what do they find attractive about that piece of you?
And it's a much more forgiving and positive way to look at your body.
So I want to make sure I understand this.
I would talk to myself as if I was a future partner to me going through each part of my body.
Yeah.
In a positive way.
Right. Well, we talk, yeah, what, okay.
What do you love about Liza's eyebrows?
What do you love about her nose?
What do you love about her lips?
What do you love about her chin, right?
And it's, it's a wonderful way, right?
The things that you're excited about, that'll come out.
Things you're indifferent about.
Well, there's still something, say, positive.
But even that thing, ooh, you know, I'm, you know, when I was saying about my husband,
this, this ball spot, this little like monk tuncher in the middle of his head, right?
For me, it's an awe, right?
For him, it might not have been, but it's not, he's not talking from his perspective,
because that doesn't matter when we're dating, we're trying to see from their perspective.
From their perspective, I would have to work on that, but I think it could be done.
I mean, I totally understand what you're saying.
I'm going through, you know, my, my husband's body.
And it's him.
Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't change anything, and he might want to change everything.
So I get, I get it, but I would imagine when you're doing this with people, for some,
it has to be challenging.
Oh, yeah.
They often slip out of it, and they start saying, I, as, as in themselves,
it's like, no, you're not you right now.
You're your partner.
And, but we do it.
We might spend a half hour on this.
I even write down everything, you know, I keep notes from everything that, you know,
last for as many years as they want to have them.
And, you know, they might need to come back to it to an exercise looking at themselves in the mirror,
but it's revelatory for most of my clients.
Makes perfect sense.
You know, you also state that you use data insights to improve your profiles and messages.
Okay, you use data insights.
I'm not going to lie.
That sounds a little creepy.
Is that me?
Yeah.
I'm a huge data nerd, and I love giving my clients all the answers.
So the data shows not just what profiles and photos get the most messages, right?
And not just what profiles and pictures and messages get the most responses.
The data is really smart these days and is looking at what leads to the most relationships, right?
Well, have us determine what a relationship is.
It's people who were messaging each other and then either change their status or delisted relatively simultaneously.
And so we can pull a lot of insights, right?
There's science in every aspect of coaching.
But when I'm talking about conversational techniques or sex techniques or how to overcome jealousy, that stuff,
they're science, but there's not data, right?
This one, there are charts that say exactly the topics of the tone, the length of the style that is most likely to succeed.
Interesting.
Any tidbits that you would share on that?
Or is it just really depend on, you know, your sacks who you're trying to reach out to?
So I mean, are there too many variables or are there any quick tips that you could say that are data driven?
Right. I mean, we talked a little bit about photos and a little bit about profiles.
I can go more through some of those.
I think a lot of people love the photosides.
So one thing the data says is your main profile photo, your head should be unabscored, right?
A lot of people are wearing sunglasses or hat or they're doing some like,
with their hands, the front of their face, over the worst would be some type of mask, right?
Still back in COVID, are you?
And, you know, that's no good for the main profile photo.
It doesn't matter if you're bald.
Bald is fine.
But if plenty of people like bald, nobody wants to see a hat.
What are you hiding in your hat, right?
Another thing is tight fitting clothing, right?
A lot of people want to wear drapey stuff if they're not proud of their body, right?
Or something dark, drapey, whatever, and they're in hot.
In the end, this person you're dating is going to see your body at some point, right?
And either, isn't it better for them to know they don't like it before the third date or the third year or whenever that would be, right?
Why waste your time together?
Your body is unlikely to change.
Not many of us are changing, or at least that rapidly, right?
So, why not show, you know, I don't mean in a slutty way, right?
But a relatively form-fitting outfit that shows who you are.
You know, yes, the data does like cleavage if that's not you don't do it.
But the, you know, something that's not just, you know, passport photo headshot,
just shows your body is somewhat, right?
There's, you want to make eye contact with the camera.
So many people are kind of looking over yonder doing something artistic.
This is not the time to show off, you know, your eighth grade photography skills, right?
This is the time to show yourself as the approachable you.
Yeah, hopefully that's a good start.
But it's a fun and exhausting list so that I could go through there.
It does sound fun and I'm assuming exhausting.
I'm here with Noah.
I'm in from datecoach.com.
When we come back, we are going to learn more about what a successful date looks like.
You're listening to the Empower Caregiver and I am your host, Liza Helen Brand.
I'm here today with Noah Hyman from datecoach.com.
Today we are talking about all things dating.
Noah is a dating coach who wants you to succeed at something that seems nerve-wracking and daunting.
Noah is, excuse me, Noah, one of your services is to provide crowd sourced feedback.
So I'm not part of the dating scene and I'm getting older and I'm from Wisconsin.
So when I see crowd, I think of a people coming together and doing something that involves drinking beer.
And when I see crowd sourced feedback, it makes me think what you're doing is getting a bunch of drunk people together to provide feedback on my dating profile.
Noah, please tell me that's not what you're doing.
That is not what I'm talking about.
There are so many tools out there, but what I'm referring to here is photofielder.com.
This site is cool. It allows you to upload photos and then you select what kind of profile this would be for.
So it could be a social thing like Facebook or it could be a business thing like LinkedIn.
But let's focus on the dating side, right?
Within the dating thing, you would say, okay, I'm a man and I'm 40.
The people who should rate this should be women who are age 30 to 55.
Then I want 20 women to rate this, right?
And it will have whatever photos you upload, they'll have 20 women actually rate those photos on three criteria.
So one is how smart you appear on the other is how trustworthy you appear.
And the third is how attractive you appear.
And it's really intelligent, right?
If somebody tends to give everybody really high marks, it will kind of lower their scores.
If it can give really tough grades, right?
Then it's going to raise their scores a little bit.
And you'll get these scores where it's like 7.1 on smart and 4.1 on trustworthy and 7.1 on attractive.
It's like, ooh, I don't know if you're trustworthy in this photo.
What's going on? Why do I appear like a sleeves, right?
And not only are there numbers, right?
So you can compare your photos and try to choose, okay, this photo is better than this photo.
But there's also, they can click all these buttons that give feedback or even type out feedback that might say,
great smile, strange background, or this seems a little blurry.
Or that's a strange photo, it's the facial expression, or I wish they were wearing a different outfit.
Or I wish this were cropped not so far away.
You look too far away, I can't really see you.
And all of that feedback, the numbers that you choose, which is your best photo,
the feedback lets you take better photos for the future.
Or even to retouch your photos, right?
A lot of my clients want their photos retouched.
And I say, yes, we can take away that weird kind of reflection in your glasses,
or you had to pimple that day.
But we should be warts and all, right?
However, we're going to show up on the first date.
We don't want to be, you know, glowing in our photo,
but within our realm of authentic stuff, right?
If we go beyond that and retouch ourselves to be somebody else,
that's capturing, right?
And it's not a successful way to date.
That makes perfect sense.
I had my daughter point that one out to me.
I needed a professional photo taken, and I did some touch-up work.
She's like, nobody's believing that mom.
Nobody's believing that.
I wasn't using it for dating purposes.
But makes perfect sense.
So people send you their photos, and you go through this process?
Yeah, I mean, they can do it themselves.
But most of my clients are, you know, a little lazy,
and any shortcut I can give them, they're like,
can you just do this for me?
And I just do it for them.
I walk them through the results.
And, you know, things sometimes need a little guidance, right?
If you have a client who's disabled or, you know, very chubby,
or something like that, there are limitations, right?
I can't filter for people who are looking for another blind person,
or in a, so then you would have to give them certain feedback.
Okay, ignore the attractive mark from some of these things,
because they're not looking for someone like you,
and just look at the other scores.
So there is some kind of curation that I can do as well.
Very interesting.
I'm speaking today with Noah Hyman from datecoach.com.
I know I had mentioned a little bit about what makes a successful date.
I think in the caregiving world,
it would involve a lot of long distance relationships,
or, you know, relationships where you can't always spend a lot of time together.
Can you speak to that a little bit?
How do you navigate that?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, one thing I want to say is the younger me was so bad at dating,
you know, I didn't come out until pretty late,
that I was would have been very high on the list of someone who needed coaching, right?
I had so many wrong assumptions,
and one was that long distance can't work.
Well, I was in the foreign service for over a decade,
and I was dating a guy back in New York City for a year and a half
when I was living in Havana, Cuba,
and we're still together 13 years later.
We didn't have little kids, right?
So I realized it can work, but how can I make it work for my clients, right?
I'll give your listeners a few tools to help.
One is to discuss what means of communication are most comfortable to you.
Too many of people are assuming that what's comfortable to them is comfortable to the other person, right?
People have different feelings on this.
Some want frequent texting, some want that daily scheduled phone call,
some people want unscheduled video calls, right?
So figure out what works best for you guys.
Then explore other creative ways to spend time together remote length, right?
So that can be watching a TV or movie or something like that together.
It could be playing video games or board games online together.
It could be phone or video sex.
People still do that.
And another thing is always have a specific trip or meeting to look forward to have that set.
That's your anchor, right?
Because if it's is will it be a week or will it be six months until I see them again?
That's it's really tough to live like that.
But if you know like, hey, I got this.
June 1st, we're meeting in Nashville and we're going to have a great long weekend together.
It can really anchor you guys.
I love that.
I always need something to look forward to in life.
Some place to go or something on the calendar.
So that makes perfect sense.
You know, we only have a minute and we could do a whole show on this and we probably could and should.
I want to talk about the LGBTQ community.
What are some things?
What are three things for the sake of time that you wish people within the LGBTQ community knew in regards to dating?
Yeah, I I'll go even quicker than that.
You know, there are so many ways we feel limited that we don't we don't realize that there are advantages for us, right?
People who have never come out are much less likely to go after what they really want and to limit themselves to only their own ethnicity or their age or their socio economic background.
We are kind of unlimited and so that's that's a huge advantage.
But yeah, a lot of this things.
Let's talk about them in person.
So, you know, for your listeners, if they want to find me, I'm on Instagram, date coach, DOT, calm, they can go to my site datecoach.com.
They can schedule a free intro session where we'll chat through their romantic goals, their circumstances, my methods.
And if it's not you, if it's a friend, you know someone who's open to help, please send them my way.
I will absolutely do that. And if I'm ever in the circumstance, no, you're going to wish you never met me because I'll be your toughest, your toughest client to date.
I'm so glad that the resources out there, so many people can benefit from what you do.
Thank you for it and keep on doing it.
