Dating coach and serial entrepreneur Kamal Jahid sits down with the Insider to talk about his work…
What brings you to Poland?
I was offered an internship out here but after two or three months the financial crisis hit and I found myself without work. Prior to that I’d kept a blog and decided to see if I could make a go of that – I literally typed into Google: ‘how to earn money from a blog’. Things went well but then my visa expired and I had to return to Morocco. After everything I had enjoyed in Poland I found it so depressing being back home. If I’d gone somewhere else for the internship then it would have been a different country, but psychologically it was Poland that I associated with freedom: I was desperate to return. Finally, I had the chance to come back and decided to use the opportunity to take the blog to the next level – now we get 40,000 hits per day.
And the dating coaching?
It started at university when a girl broke my heart. I was so frustrated at not being able get what I want that I started looking at self-help articles online before moving onto books. I used to hate reading but all of a sudden I was hooked. I thought, if this is what I can learn from one book, imagine what I can learn from a hundred! I was reading about anything – confidence, power, charisma – basically, everything I didn’t have. I had severe acne at the time and lacked confidence, but all of a sudden I could feel it growing. Now I’m at the stage where I can share the knowledge that I’ve gained myself.
How does the coaching work?
I socialize people. Most people have amazing personalities and it’s about bringing them out. For my coaching I don’t go into the whole ‘guru to student’ thing, I prefer ‘friend to friend’. That means integrating the client into my circle, hanging out. We define your weaknesses and then work on them, we face the problem. Its long-term coaching, not some weekend class, and while it’s a slow method it’s effective. People see the bigger picture and learn that it’s not about tricks and manipulation.
Who are your clients?
Before I take someone on I’ll sit down for dinner with them. The person has to have a passion in life, I’m not going to work with someone who just wants to sleep with women – these people have bad energy. They have a limited vision. No matter what you say to them it’ll always go back to square one with them. I also don’t accept people who are overweight – I’m not a fitness coach, I’m not a magician. I say to them, get your life together and I’ll be waiting. You don’t need to be a supermodel but you need to get into shape. And you know what, if someone comes back after six months and I can see they’ve really made the effort then, woah, I would do everything I can to help him.
As a dating coach you must be a master of the one-liner?
I can tell you thousands of pick-up lines but it’s not about what to say, it’s about how you say it. In every book I’ve written I’m clear from the first page that the secret isn’t about tricks. It’s about becoming a better person, it’s about having something to deliver to the world: women want to be associated with someone who does amazing things. You need to think of yourself as someone who is here to change the world.
Where do you stand on books like The Game?
At the beginning of my journey I was playing the field. I used many of the tricks in the book and you know what, they work, but only to a point. You see, after a couple of weeks it dawns on the other person that you’re not the brilliant person you pretended to be. That’s when I realized dating coaching is not about these sort of moves.
For more about Kamal check:
kamaljahid.com
