The Dating Secrets I Learned While Coaching Men (That Changed Everything)

So I've been an executive love coach, helping women successfully get out there and find love for over a decade now. But let me tell you all, it didn't actually start out that way. In fact, I never had any plans on coaching women because when I first started out as an executive love coach, I was actually coaching men on how to get out there and meet you. And Gary wanted me to start by telling a little bit about how this all came to be, because it's kind of a weird, convoluted, crazy story. And then we're going to talk today about. About some of the secrets I learned back when I was coaching men that I think will be very useful for all of you. Welcome to the Love Strategies podcast, where we help successful women attract high value men, date with a strategy and improve their relationships. Now, whether you're single or dating or in a new relationship, we're here to help you dive into the male mind and provide raw insights found nowhere else. Backed by science, psychology, and our own personal experiences, your hosts today are myself, Adam Lodolce, professional dating coach and founder of love strategies, and Dr. Gary Lewandowski, relief relationship scientist, professor, and our head relationship coach here at Love Strategies. Please share with a friend and enjoy.

Can I just say how much I love this idea because I've heard this story. Like, I know the background, and I feel like on the podcast, we haven't given, like, the Adam origin story.

Your.

Your background, your deep, dark, you know, how did it. How did this all come to be? Side of things. And it's not only is it fascinating, but it's also, I think, what gives us, like, such a great advantage in terms of helping women, because you have firsthand knowledge of how men are approaching dating and not just from, like, being a guy, which you obviously are, but, you know, from actually coaching men and helping them and knowing some of their insecurities and some of the things they're concerned about. And I think understanding what's under the hood with men is so critical to helping women have dating success. And so I love that we're doing this today.

Thanks, Gary. Gary. Gary really wants me to get outside my comfort zone and go way back into the way back machine here. But, yeah, it all started actually from college. And in college, I really, really struggled with my dating life. I was the classic guy who was super, super nice to women, but I had this horrific nickname that was a friend zoned Adam. Okay? I was the guy who was always in the friend zone, who couldn't create the connections. And honestly, I wasn't the guy that would get the girl. And out of college, I had a pretty kind of standard career. I was in management consulting, and I was traveling a lot. And I found that I. I had the stuff, I had the car, I had the job. But I still wasn't attracting the right type of women in my life. And where this deep insecurity would come from is that my mother is one of the top divorce attorneys in all of Massachusetts. So unlike most kids growing up, I would sit around at a dinner table and we'd be talking about divorce all dinner long, right? Like the horrible decisions people made in their relationships, why relationships would end in divorce. And, you know, my mom was. Was a true pragmatist and, and wouldn't make this, like, a horribly emotional experience, but it would just really give me the perspective that, hey, this is really important and you gotta figure this out quickly or else you're gonna be at the dinner table of some other divorce attorney talking to her kids about this guy's relationship ended. And I didn't want that for myself. I really didn't want that.

Thanks, mom. Thanks, mom. Please press the bread.

Thanks, Anne. You're the best. And medulce. Oh, my God, what a gem. So then I decided I was gonna really focus all of my attention. I'm. I'm the type of guy who goes all in on things. So I studied and read everything I could. And at the time, so much of the dating advice was focused on, like, being a pickup artist, how to pick up women, how to, you know, get them into bed and all that stuff. And, you know, I read some of that stuff, but honestly, it never resonated with me because that was never really my. My ultimate goal. So I dove into a lot of the information about psychology, attraction, and where I landed was, hey, I need to actually get out there and use this information because I knew some people who were reading a lot about various dating strategies and tactics, but they weren't actually getting out there and getting the right type of experience with this stuff. So I set a goal for myself, which is for one year of my life, I was going to get out and talk to one new woman every single day. That was the big goal. Now we call that a social score goal, and that still lives to this day with our clients. But I set a little bit of a social score goal for myself. And let me tell you, that first month of my life was horrific. Like I am telling you, when I was going around and talking to women, I would frighten a woman because I come in Too hot. Like, hey, what's going on? And just basically, whoa, dude, you need to relax with your energy here, guy. And then other women, I would come in too timid and too shy, and I wasn't really creating the connections. But something started to click about a month in. I started to get some real experience and testing and trying different things that would work. And suddenly everything started changing in my life. I not only became more confident in my dating life, I was getting a lot more deeper connections with people, but also professionally, everything was starting to change. I started to do a little bit of speaking, and very long story short, I'm going to do the classic yada, yada, yada here. I had some men who were willing to pay me money. I was like, wait, what? Pay me money to start working with them and coaching them. And so I recognized within a few more months that, hey, maybe I can actually go all in on this little thing called dating coaching, which I never knew existed, and really help these guys build some of these genuine connections with women, not just get out there and pick up women. And in fact, that was. We're going to get to this in a minute. That was never the intention of these guys. I didn't want to do that anyways. That's never been my thing. It was much more focused on actually getting out there, being confident and helping the good guys have an opportunity to meet women. And then from there, I was speaking across the country. I was speaking at universities, and just to. To land the plane here on how I started working with women. After about five years of coaching men and building an incredible practice, I was featured in Glamour magazine on my coaching for men, on some of the work that I was doing, and it was a very positive feature. I appreciate that. But out of nowhere, I was bombarded by women asking me pretty standard questions, such as, like, why do men pull away? Why are men emotionally avoidant? Why is my guy texting me this? What does that mean? And very quickly, I was like, holy crap. Everything. I just. All my experiences up to this date have really prepared me to helping women get inside the male mind. And that's when love strategies got started. Gary got involved, and look at us now, Gary. It's wild. Fifteen years later, you know, here's where I love it.

I love it. I. I love that story for lots of reasons. I appreciate the Friend Zone Adam part. That's one of my favorites. But I also, I. I think it's so nice to hear someone who has approached a challenge in life so intentionally and, like, look at what has happened from doing that. You know, we nerdily call your approach to like going out there and meeting people. You know, in academia we call it like a rugged empiricist. Like you're just going to go out and try stuff and then you learn from those experiences and you take those lessons and you apply them and you just keep iterating and iterating until you kind of figure out what really works. And so the fact that you've traveled that path yourself and then had this experience with coaching men for five years, I know our clients see the benefit of your insights every single day. So I'm excited to share a couple of those today on the pod.

Yeah, I appreciate that, Gary, and it's been really fun. Honestly, what I learned from that experience of working with men and then working with women is that women have a lot of misconceptions about men. What they are told by society, by the media, by frankly a lot of Glamour magazine articles. Do people even still read Glamour magazine? I don't know. I hope not. But there's a lot of misconceptions and that's really what we want to get create some clarity for all of you on today. And this is just really based on my experience of working with many of these guys who were incredibly successful in their life professionally. They are the guys that you might see around and actually might be interested in. There's many guys that you might not be interested in as well. But these are the good guys. These are the guys that you do what I will say you would want to spend the rest of your life with. I worked with these guys very intimately and I think that there's a lot to be learned from this. So the first big idea that I want to share with all of you is that it is not all about hooking up. I thought that when I started working with men that I would have this really long application process of weeding out all these men who just want short term flings and just want to hook up with, with women and you know, that's all they're looking for. I, I actually built this thing over like it took me a week to build this really complicated application to filter out these guys that I thought I was going to be getting all these horrific people. Gary. I got like zero, basically. I maybe won over like a five year period of men who really only wanted to hook up. In fact, the vast, vast majority of guys wanted a long term, healthy, committed relationship. Like, and yeah, I mean of course, are these guys interested in physical intimacy? Yes, of course. Would they be open to sleeping with a woman on the first date? Yes, of course there are guy, sure. But is that all they wanted? No, not at all. It's pretty wild. And so working with women, typically the conversation when we're talking to potential clients, like when we ask a woman, what are you looking for? Typically women will say, yeah, I'm looking for a loving, committed relationship. Relationship. They're usually pretty blunt about it. When I would ask men what they're looking for, they would typically say things such as, I'm looking to get out there, meet women, and when the right girl comes around, I absolutely want to spend the rest of my life with her or I absolutely want to settle down. So it's just said a little bit differently. Right. And I think that can be seen in the way that the different genders date. But at the end of the day, everyone wants the same end result, which is a committed, exclusive relationship.

Yeah. And I think, you know, what you just shared there about how guys word it, like, I'm going out there and I'm looking for the right woman. I think that brings us to the second thing that I know I've heard you say a lot about your experience, which is this idea of like, can you win a guy over by being physical? Is that a good approach? And yeah, I mean, that'll keep him around for a while and. But is it going to create the emotional intimacy that you want? And the answer to that's not. Not really. Because if physical intimacy happens too fast, like you just said, like, will guys sleep with the woman early? Sure. But it's like that part is like, is that the kind of woman they're looking for to spend the rest of their life with? And the answer is no. Because if the physical intimacy comes too easily, comes too quickly, a guy doesn't value it. And this goes to like basic psychological principles. Like, we like what we have to work for. If things come easy, we don't value them as much. The other thing is, is quite frankly is if a guy thinks, oh, you're being quick physically with me, he just assumes you're doing that as your general strategy towards lots of other guys. And that doesn't signal long term potential. And, you know, I mean, the other thing that I think has come directly from your male coaching experience that we tell our clients all the time, is if you lose a guy by not being physical enough, you never had him in the first place. This was not a guy you were really looking for. This was not going to be a man that was going to meet your love vision. This was not your long term, the one type of man. Physical intimacy. You, you're not going to win guys over the kind of guy that you want by being too physical too fast. And so we really emphasize now in the program and our, our clients benefit from it all the time is emotional intimacy. First. Build the compatibility, build some of those friendship kinds of things. Enjoy spending time together, do that first, and then the physical intimacy follows.

Yeah, it's, it's weird. When I first started coaching men, I, for whatever reason thought that it would be very similar to like a locker room talk where guys would just be like, oh yeah, hooked up with this girl, hooked up with that girl. And I didn't want that. I just thought I would have to be battling against that. But that was not the case. It really wasn't. Guys wouldn't come in bed, oh my God, I slept with this woman tonight. Yada yada. That wasn't typically the conversation. If it was, I would redirect it instead. It was much more like, I've taken this woman out a few different times. We haven't hooked up yet. She seems more like wife material to me. And it's not like they would celebrate that. They would always be asking it in the framing of like, how do I progress things forward. I don't want to get into the friend zone. And you know, and that's fair. It's true. Like if, if it goes on for too long, then you do run the risk of actually falling into that friend zone. So there's, there's definitely a tension there. There's a balance to be struck. But that was most of the conversation is like by delaying the physical intimacy, it would actually position the woman much more as being wife type material, girlfriend material. I would hear that a lot. I mean, it's pretty fascinating.

Yeah, it's always, I mean it's, it's always been my experience talking to friends of mine and just kind of growing up being a guy is like you kind of put women in. It's like there's fun and then there's forever. And they're not always the same type of girl at the same kind of time. And. But it's like delaying physical is the easiest way to position yourself as a woman, to be more of the forever type of partner. Right.

It's just the easiest way to do it 100%. The third big one, and this is probably one of the biggest of them all that I realized from switching from men to women is that guys do not have it all figured out. And by the way, women do not have it all figured out when it comes to dating. Because here's the craziest thing about it all. When I was working with men, men would always be thinking, these women, they all know what they're doing out there. And I'm really struggling. I'm. And I would think that as well, by the way, I love. I was a dating coach for five years, and I'm like, these women got it all figured out. Oh, my God. And then I started working with women. I'm like, God help us. No one has it figured out. Everyone's clueless. Like, is there any hope in this world? And so it's just so important for us to recognize. And now I can say this with a lot of confidence. Like, truly, no one has it figured out. Dating doesn't necessarily come naturally to anyone, and no one really knows what they're doing. And when we. When we have that framing, it really sets us free to give people some grace through the process. Like, if a guy assumes that women have it all figured out, and then a woman does something wrong or perhaps a little bit mean or conniving or, you know, appears to be low character, if he thinks she's got it all figured out, then he's not going to give her any grace, right? But if he recognizes, like, hey, she's human, she's just trying to do the best she can, she's trying to work out, perhaps he might give her a little bit of grace, maybe give her a second chance. I think that can be healthy within reason. Same thing applies with men like Gary. How many times have we seen clients go out with a guy and a first date, something happens, like, I don't know, he. He picks her up late or, you know, doesn't text her to confirm before the date, and she's like, how could he not do that? How many times have we hear things like that and we're just like, yeah, he's a dope. He doesn't have it figured out. It doesn't mean he's necessarily a bad guy. Right.

Well, and, you know, I. I think one of the biggest things for everyone to realize is this piece of. Not only does the other side not have it figured out, we have to assume at all times that they are just a little clueless. Like, they are just trying to figure things out as they go. The problem comes in is like, oh, they have it so easy. They have it. And this idea of, they have it easy and I have it hard, it's actually more problematic because you're, you're kind of putting yourself down for how hard you have it without recognizing, like, no, no, no. This is hard for everybody. Because I see it with our clients all the time. They personalize it. They take it very, very personally. It's like, gosh, what is wrong with me that this is so hard? It's like, no, no, no. Nope. This is just hard. It's just something that is hard. It's difficult. It's not you. Men don't have it easy. Men hear virtually from no one. No women on the apps, right? I mean, the data is all really clear. Like, men get all very little attention. A very small percentage of men get a ton of attention. But most guys, what are they hearing? Crickets? They're not getting a lot of attention. So guys are dealing with a ton of, of rejection all the time. They're dealing with a ton of loneliness. And here's the other thing where guys definitely don't have it all figured out that women are far superior. Guys are stubborn and unwilling to get help. They're unwilling to get help. Like, they're just not. They're not getting coaching. They're not like reading articles on the Internet. They're not watching videos to try to improve their first date skills and conversations. They're just like, I don't know, maybe this will work out, maybe it won't. Like, a lot of them just aren't taking the time to get better. And so they also don't have their friends to rely on. They don't have their family. It's just men are living in an informational knowledge and wisdom skill vacuum. And so if you think men have it all figured out, they are so far from having it figured out.

I love that you said that, Gary. And I think that's something I also realized we don't have that in our docket notes here, but I'll just side note this, which is that when we, over the past few years with Love Strategies, we've really focused a lot on community and opening up and creating these amazing connections. And that to me, I was always kind of like, is that really important? You were always, Adam, we have to do this. This is the number one most important thing. And by the way, it has become the number one most important thing, which is the network of love strategy within Love Strategies. We call them the little love sisters within our coaching program. And what I've found with men is they just don't do that as much. They don't open up with one another. They don't create Those connections where they share about their relationships. And, like, I'm. I'm not sure if I ever go back to coaching men.

I'm.

I'm still leaving that open if I ever do that again. I'm not sure how much I, I. They'll. They need it, but I'm. I'm unsure of how much they'll lean into that. But I. I will definitely create a culture of trying to connect these guys, for sure, because that is something they are very much so in need of.

They definitely need it. And that's. It's one of those things that they need it, but will they use it? Do they seek it out? I. I don't know. You know, I think if done the right way, it'll. It'll work out. But guys. Guys are clueless and need a lot. And I just think more than anything, it's important for women to just recognize that guys struggle. They struggle with a lot of this, and they. You know, the thing that I think underscores a lot of this is this idea that guys are people, too. It sounds like a weird thing to say, but they have emotions, right? They. They worry about getting hurt. They worry about getting embarrassed. They worry about getting rejected. They worry about being alone. Guys overthink. They worry too much. They catastrophize with the best of them. Guys get scammed, too, on these dating apps. Guys worry about their weight, their looks, how much hair they have left. They worry if they're being successful enough, impressive enough, make enough money. They want someone to share their life with, too. They want someone to care about them, to support them, to be there for them. And I think sometimes women, when they get themselves stuck in a dating context, start not looking at men as actual people. They look at it as, like, this weird stereotypical. Like, he's just a guy. And it's like, no, no, he's not just a guy. Like, he's someone's. This sounds corny, but it's like he's somebody's son. Like, he's somebody who's looking for someone to share his life with, too. And I think that's so much of what you were saying earlier about, like, talking to these men and what are they really looking for? They're not looking to hook up. Like, people have this innate need to pair bond and find someone to share their life with. This is actually what guys are looking for, too, right?

I had this client, it's going back a long time now, but he was the CEO of a pretty major company. It wasn't quite Fortune 500. But it was, it had like hundreds and hundreds of employees. He would have to speak in front of employees all the time. He was very much so a leader professionally. But I was working with this guy and he was part of my private coaching. We would just work together and there would be nights where we would actually go out together and I would help him overcome some of his fears. And let me tell you, the first time we ever worked together, when I challenged him to go up and approach a woman that he was attracted to, he crumbled. Crumbled. I mean, his fear of rejection was so potent, it would be equivalent to all the women listening in right now. Be equivalent to you getting on stage in front of 5,000 people and delivering a one hour keynote address without preparing ahead of time. Like, just imagine the potency of that. And this is from a guy who's very comfortable speaking in front of people. Right. He still feels that level of fear of rejection. And so whenever I would hear from women, questions like, why aren't more guys approaching me? Or why isn't that guy coming up and talking to me? Or, you know, he just must be a shy guy or something like that, I'd be like, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? That is crazy town. I mean, even to this day, like, you know, the fear of rejection is very similar to public speaking. I'll say this in the context of my life, like, I've been public speaking for 20 years, but I still get nervous getting on stage every single time. Like it just exists within us. And so you got to give these guys some grace and if possible, give them a lot of those green light signals that you are interested in. Because these guys, when they walk into a room, I don't care how successful, how confident these guys are, they walk into a room, scan the room, and look for the woman who is least likely to reject them horrifically. And they'll go into up and talk to that woman first, a hundred percent.

And it's something that women don't appreciate, don't recognize. Right? And it's because they don't recognize that. It's, it's exactly what you said is like, why don't more men approach me? And it's like, because it's terrifying. There's a thousand things that could go wrong and only one that could go right. And it's, it's tough. I, I think this brings us to the, the thing I've heard you talk about a lot with this, that always resonates with me. And I think I've seen with our clients, it's this aha moment and I feel like it's the thing that there's one piece you're going to take out of this whole entire podcast. It should be this, is that a lot of great guys, in fact, some of the very best guys out there to have long term relationship with have absolutely zero dating, quote, unquote game. They got no game, they got no skills, they're, they got no abilities, they're not smooth, they're not polished, they're not just spontaneously charismatic and engaging. Great guys just, they don't have that level of just perfection performance. And there's a good reason for it. They haven't practiced this, they haven't done it that much. They're long term dating guys. They've been in long term relationships where you don't have a lot of this opportunity to put on these like little performances and be charismatic and engaging. They just, there's no need. The other side of this is a lot of these really great high character guys. They're high in emotional intelligence, which means they're really good at taking perspective and seeing things from the woman's point of view. And so it makes them just a little bit more hesitant because they don't want to be disrespectful. They will, they don't want to be too pushy, they don't want to come on too strong. And this is all well intentioned. These are fantastic impulses. This is the exact kind of thing you want in a long term partner. It just makes them kind of crap at dating because he's constantly worried about like, oh gosh, like, I don't want to scare her, I don't want to, you know, come on too strong. And so it's like, I'm not going to approach her. So what it means is if you want to attract those kinds of men, you need to send really clear signals. You need to make it really, really easy for even that high powered CEO to feel comfortable walking across the room, introducing himself without worry, without worrying about being horrifyingly rejected. Like that's, it's a tough thing. So make it, make it easy on them.

There's nothing more painful than when I hear a story from a client who goes on a first date with a guy who has just zero game. But I know he's a good guy based on how the whole story has played out. And I'm like, ah, just give me five minutes with this guy. Just give me five minutes showing this guy how to be A little bit more forward, how to be a little bit more direct, how to be a little bit less needy early on or a little bit less emotive early on? Because let me tell you, every woman says that they want to be with a guy who's highly emotional until they find a guy who is leaning into his feminine and highly emotionally in tune. So it's, it's this critical balance. It's, it's, it's what we, for lack of better term, call game. And you can work. These guys can learn this so quickly. It's incredible. And so what is the lesson to be learned as a woman? It's to perhaps devalue that a little bit because once you're married, trust me, there's no game. It's gone. You know, and we're not even talking about playing games. For those who are unfamiliar with the word game, that is more of a term of how to be charming and how to build attraction. It's not about playing games. It's about when people say, you know, this guy's got game, it means he can go up and confidently talk to a woman anywhere, anytime, be able to build a connection with her pretty quickly. Okay? So the lesson to be learned and a lot of what we got our clients to is to deprioritize that through the dating process because honestly, it's a pretty superficial skill and prioritize the, the components that actually last to create a long lasting relationship, such as character. Because you can teach game. You really can. It's very hard to teach high character.

Right.

In my experience.

And I think, you know, the solution with these guys who might fumble around a little bit on the first date, who say the wrong thing, who might seem just a little bit nervous, it's a simple solution which is give him another chance. If you give him another chance, you give him a second date. That solves most of his concerns because he's thinking, she doesn't like me. This is going horrible. This is going terrible. I'm dying, I'm bombing. I'm just getting destroyed out here. But if you say, I have a really wonderful time, I'd love to see you again, all of a sudden he's like, oh, wait, what? Wait, I did a lot better than I thought. Oh my gosh, I'm much better at this than I thought. All of a sudden he puffs his chest up, his confidence is going. All of a sudden he feels a whole lot better. And you're going to get a different version of that guy. A lot of times on the Second and definitely on the third date. And some, sometimes it's just about giving him a little bit of a chance. Now, I do have to say one small tangent because I can hear we have one client who says this a lot on Masterminds. And I can hear, I'm sure some of you are thinking the same thing, is this client always says, gary, I believe all this. I just don't understand why we as women have to do all the work. And I'm like, yeah, no, I get it, it's fair. But you don't have to do all of the work, but you do have to make it a little bit easier so the guy can do some of the work more confidently. The other part of it is just, frankly, men aren't getting coaching. Men aren't doing a lot of this learning stuff. And so at the end of the day, does it really matter who took more initiative early on? You're both in the same relationship and you're both going to share the same relationship. Is it really that big of a deal if you gave a little bit more effort early on and he gives a little bit more effort later on? Like, let's, let's not start keeping score. Let's not worry about who's doing more. And, you know, whether this is fair or not, we all want the same thing. We all want someone to share our life with. We all want that, you know, synergistic partner where we grow and change and evolve together. Like, we all want that same thing. So if that requires you as women, just put giving out a little bit stronger signal, a bigger welcome mat, and saying like, hey to these really great guys, like, yeah, I'm not gonna reject you. It's safe over here. Come talk to me. Like, I think that, yeah, is a little bit more effort on your part. At first it is, but it's worth it, I think.

Yeah. And control what's within your control. What you can control is your behavior and your actions. You can't control necessarily if other guys are getting coaching, if they're doing all the work, yada, yada, yada, focus on what you can control. And ultimately you can control who you attract in your life. High character men who you avoid like the plague, low character men, and how it is that your love story ends. And so if you want a little bit of guidance in this area of your life, that's what we do around here. Our entire coaching staff is a healthy mix of men and women who will guide you on this path to attracting that man, that relationship. You truly deserve following this process we call the seven Little Love Steps. So if you want to explore what that would look like for you, you can kind of skip the line. We have an application process to work with us and head on over to loveapply.com and you'll apply for what we call a love Strategy session. If you get a chance to book that session, make sure you hop on that session, speak with some of my team, and we can see whether or not our approach is right for you. If it is, we would love to work with you. If not, we'll put you in the best direction possible. Again, that's loveapply.com Gary, this was a fun one. You brought me way back to the way back machine. This was really fun and I appreciate you so much, man. Thanks so much.

Thanks for sharing your origin story, man. Appreciate it.

All right.