Relationship Advice Online

“If you’ve been out of the dating game for a while, it’s hardly surprising that you get ‘rusty’ at the whole dating, flirting and getting to know someone. Plus, if your last relationship had problems, there’s always that little voice at the back of your head telling you that you must be mad to want to do all that again!” explains Dr Jackie.

It was when she realised that, as one person, she could only help so many people, that she started thinking about how to reach more people and help them. One-to-one coaching limits the number of people she is able to help. One of the first things that came to mind was teleclasses.

For the uninitiated a teleclass is where the coach ‘meets’ a group of people on a telephone bridge line. This can be any number from two or three up to over a hundred, if the class is managed properly this is not as impossible a task as it might seem. So Dr Jackie started talking to Steve Stockton, CEO of 24-7coaching.com and Stef Young, 24-7’s Development Director, their organisation specialises in delivering teleclasses on a wide range of subjects. Dr Jackie was already an experienced teleclass leader, so it seemed an obvious step.

“I can help more people through teleclasses, but I soon realised that it wouldn’t allow everyone to work at their own pace and to ask the questions they needed to ask,” she explains. So, with lots of encouragement from Steve and Stef, she started designing a series of eCourses on dating and relationships that can be done entirely through email.

The idea was to offer more than just a workbook, but to add audio messages from Dr Jackie, and regular telephone ‘clinics’ to enable the people following the programme to talk directly to her. It was a big project, but Dr Jackie was dedicated to making it work and the guys from 24-7 were prepared to do whatever it took to support her.

This conversation took place a year and a half ago, but ran into a setback very quickly. Dr Jackie’s husband, Mark, was diagnosed with cancer and she has spent most of the last year dedicated to making their life together as rich as possible.

Sadly, Mark died in July this year, but Dr Jackie is back at work and the Dating eCourse series has been completed. How did she manage a big project like this alongside the heartache of seeing someone you love suffer?

“I look back on this experience and wonder how I did it. My work and my husband were my two great loves and there was never a choice between them. Last year as Mark became weaker, when he turned off his computer and stopped working for the day I stopped working as well so we could spend as much time as possible together. Then I got up to work whilst he slept.”

Mark and Jackie had only been together for four years, so how did an expert in relationships put her theories into practice when they first met? “I had been divorced for 16 years when I met Mark,” remembers Dr Jackie. “I had attended a social event run by my local golf group. While I played golf with them frequently, it was the first social event I had attended since I joined – five years previously.