Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Katherine Gyolai, who is the CEO and founder of Katherine Gyolai LLC, which is a coaching firm, and also Find Love Safely, which is a matchmaking service for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Welcome.

Katherine Gyolai: Thanks so much, Lee. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Why don’t we start first with your coaching practice? How are you serving folks in that manner?

Katherine Gyolai: Sure. So through my coaching practice, I serve both individuals and teams. For individuals, my focus is primarily on women, specifically women owned or female entrepreneurs. I really love to coach anybody who is on the precipice of change. So that can be somebody in a business setting who is going from being an individual contributor to managing a team, perhaps, or it can be somebody in more of the of their personal life where perhaps they are a mother and they’ve stayed at home with their children as they were younger, and now their children are off to school or heading off to school. And so they’re the women are really wondering, what’s the next step in my life? Do I go back to work? Do I continue to stay home with my children? So those are sort of two of my sweet spots with the individual coaching. I also love to coach couples, and I do that through using Cliftonstrengths, which used to be called the Strengthsfinder assessment. And what we often think with couples is that sameness compatibility equals sameness. And that’s just not true. And what we learn through the Cliftonstrengths assessment and through that work is that it’s really the understanding of one another’s strengths that make a couple truly empathetic and and compatible more than it is the sameness of that couple. And then finally, through the coaching, I also coach teams. And again, I really enjoy using the Cliftonstrengths assessment to coach teams. I find that the team work, the team coaching helps to build empathy, and so we can put ourselves in other people’s shoes a little bit better. And in order to be able to make the team work better as a whole.

Lee Kantor: So when you’re doing your coaching, it sounds like you’re it’s not just strictly this is business, and I’m helping you become a better kind of business person or a better worker in your business. It expands beyond that into more personal areas.

Katherine Gyolai: It does. The coaching that I like to do really involves and incorporates all aspects of somebody’s life. And so we, you know, we look in the personal life and the personal support that people have and in terms of how that informs what their professional lives can be. And again, like in my example of the women who are, um, stay at home, currently stay at home moms and sort of wondering what the next role in their life is going to be, that wouldn’t you know, it’s finding it’s helping them find who they who they are beyond being a mother. It’s helping them tune in to that inner voice, what’s right for them. There’s so much pressure out there to either go to work or to stay home. We women are getting it, getting that kind of pressure from all over the place. And so my job and my passion is really around helping women find what is right for them and their circumstances, because it is not a blanket approach. For some women, it does make sense to go back to work, and some women it makes sense for them to stay home and that’s really where their heart is. And so I think of myself as as helping draw out that inner voice and then giving women permission to lean into what that voice is telling them.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in this line of work? Were you always kind of involved in this type of coaching?

Katherine Gyolai: No, my my, my. I’ve spent most of my career in branding and marketing and around Covid, like many of us, I had a bit of an existential crisis and wondered, you know, am I really doing what I’m supposed to be doing? And while marketing is great, what I love about marketing, what I enjoyed about marketing throughout my career was the ability to try to figure out, uh, decode and then connect with the consumer on the other end. Not so much about what campaign is, is, um, flashy and and and that, but really more about how can we truly connect and communicate with that end consumer. That was always what really energized me about marketing. And, um, so around Covid, I decided to pursue a coaching certification. And, uh, and, you know, I went through I went through a whole journey of what do I what do I want to become? Do I want to go more into therapy? Do I want to become a therapist? I’ve always loved the the the inner workings of how people connect, how they communicate, how they relate to one another. That’s always been fascinating to me. I really like journeying with people, um, along the ups and the downs. And so I, I just decided at that point to pivot. I continued in marketing, but was pursuing a coaching degree, um, on the side. And so now I have made the the full pivot from the marketing world into full time coaching. And then also, um, my other business, Find Love safely.

Lee Kantor: So how did you, um, make the transition yourself, going through a big transition of having worked for somebody in kind of a worker kind of mentality, where now you’re an entrepreneur and now it’s kind of an eat what you kill world as a coach. How did you get your first customers, and how do you kind of keep your pipeline full when it comes to marketing, or you’re just using the same tactics you were using as a marketer for others?

Katherine Gyolai: Yeah, well, certainly having a marketing background helps and and having a passion for how to connect with people on the other side helps. Um, I would say I lean a lot and did in the beginning and continue to lean a lot on my networks and my relationships that I’ve built, um, in order to, to keep that pipeline full, um, continuing to connect with them authentically and, and provide, you know, valuable service, right? When you’re providing a service that is working and, people are appreciating, then it’s it’s pretty easy and word can spread. Not to say that keeping my pipeline full has always been a breeze, but it really, I find, is more about the relationships than anything else.

Lee Kantor: So for the listeners out there that may be contemplating their own coaching practice, how do you create that initial bridge when a person sees you a certain way and now you’re asking them to see you a slightly different way, how do you kind of make that transition?

Katherine Gyolai: Well, I can tell you how I how I did it for me. I don’t know, um, you know, I don’t I can’t say that I have, uh, you know, a magic wand that it, that I was able to use. But for me, I my, my whole, um, being my whole way of existing is sort of in that coaching realm. And I don’t mean that to sound so grandiose that it’s like what? You know. What are you even talking about? But for me, I really. When I told people I was a, I was becoming a coach. Um, the answer was not, you know, the response was not. Oh, really? It was more like, yeah, finally, finally you’re doing that because I that is what I, it’s sort of just how I show up in the world. I’m very curious. I ask people lots of questions. I want to get to know them. And I ask those deeper questions. I love to go deep. In fact, um, I that’s that’s my happy place. Small talk is really exhausting to me. Uh, I don’t enjoy it at all. And so I’m much more comfortable in that deep space of asking really thought provoking questions. And so the transition from marketing to coaching was a pretty seamless one for me, because that’s how I’ve been showing up in my career, um, for most of my career. And so that’s it was not a big leap for those who know me and for those in my network.

Lee Kantor: And so for those initial people that you were talking with to share and be vulnerable, they were already sharing and being vulnerable with you. That wasn’t kind of a leap.

Katherine Gyolai: No, not a leap at all. And that’s how they know me. That’s how they knew me for those initial ones. So they knew me as that person. Uh, it was a it was almost like I was I was finally becoming who I, who I really am, just in a work setting in a, in a professional setting, um, versus sort of trying to put the, the round peg in the, you know, what is it, square peg in the round hole. Um, so it was it was actually a really natural transition for me. It made a lot of sense to to those in my network and those in my support system.

Lee Kantor: Now, how did, uh, your business Find Love safely come about? Was that kind of an outgrowth of your couples coaching?

Katherine Gyolai: Yeah. So find love safely. I am a mother and stepmom to eight children, four of whom have an intellectual and developmental disability. And so when my son was 20, he is my son with down syndrome. He came to his father and I and said, can I join Tinder? And we just about panicked and said, no, you you cannot do that. And so I but he was clearly expressing a need and a desire for a girlfriend for connection with somebody other than his family and his coworkers. And so I began this search online for how I can help him date safely. Um, he is, you know, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are extremely vulnerable to online scamming. Um, one of the recent statistics I saw, it’s not so recent, but, um, but I saw it recently. It was that in 2022, uh, people with disabilities lost $33.7 million to online scamming, and that was up 71% from 2021. It is a real problem when I am out in in in public at representing Find Love Safely, I have people standing in line waiting to tell me a story of a loved one who’s been taken advantage of online. Um, typically romantically, through a romantic scam. So I knew that online dating and apps and Tinder and match, right? Those just are not going to work for my son. And I began, um, seeking something that that would would work.

Katherine Gyolai: And I, you know, I’m a big fan of love on the spectrum, as so many are. And I thought, well, that must have been based on a real life service that exists already. And I did some digging and it just there’s nothing out there that exists. So I decided to create it. I was in a position to be able to create it. I have a real passion for this population. And so I built the kind of matchmaking service that I wanted for my son. And it is. It’s not an app. People like to say, oh, it’s an app or it’s an it’s an online dating service. It’s not at all. Um, the only thing that happens online is that you submit an interest form. Everything else happens with a real person, which is me in the Twin Cities. Or we have a matchmaker out in California as well who’s servicing that population. And so, uh, find love safely is really find love safely, I feel is a culmination, a true culmination of everything that I have done in my personal life and my professional life. Um, it brings together my coaching. I have coaching videos on my website that where I, um, coach members or find Love Safely members through some of those, um, not well, simple is a word, but some of those sort of basic dating concepts of what do you say when you are meeting that person for the first time.

Katherine Gyolai: How do you handle rejection? Um, what do you wear on your first date? Those those things that you and I have maybe had to learn through trial and error that are a harder lesson sometimes for the disabled community. So I’ve got my coaching videos there. I’ve got a blog for guardians, and then it really is a true matchmaking service. I’m trying to broaden the community, um, of the disabled. And, you know, we kind of tend to be in our own little circles, right? I’m in my little school district with my kids, and I know that I know that there are adults now, but and I know the other adults in this area and then, you know, go ten miles up the road and there’s another family that knows the adults in their area and the families in their area, but we’re not as connected. And if we don’t fill that space there, people, bad people are going to come in and fill it for us because there is still a deep longing for connection and relationship and friendship in the disabled community that, um, we need to be answering for that, and we need to be able to have an answer for that. Uh, otherwise the scamming is going to continue. It’s going to become more pervasive, um, which is a really, really scary thing and something I’m I’m pretty committed to stopping.

Lee Kantor: Now, I’m a big fan of that show as well, and it’s really kind of breaks your heart to see the parents rooting so hard for their children and the children trying their best. And then I think sometimes the the audience gets frustrated with, come on, you know, it’s right there. Like it seems doable. How do you, um, how do you kind of find the people to participate, to be part of this? Because I would imagine, like you said, you know, people’s networks are usually pretty small, and that just the geography of it and the, the convenience of it, I would imagine you’re going to find her in real life, you would find a match that somewhere near your work, or somewhere near where you hang out or where your hobbies are. Where do people with these kind of disabilities, where do they go if there wasn’t, you know, your service to help them? How was the matchmaking happening before you?

Katherine Gyolai: Uh, it’s a good question. Um, you know, I the answer is probably that it’s happening more organically. Maybe somebody at work, maybe somebody at the Special Olympics swim meet that they’re part of. Um, maybe somebody they went to school with. And the transition plus communities, which is the 18 and 2018 to 21 year old. Not every state has that Minnesota does. Um, so it was it just sort of was not happening. Actually, there’s nothing like this that solves that crisis. Um, if they’re not meeting organically, then you know, where where they’re just meeting somebody at work, or they’re meeting somebody as part of their Special Olympics team. Um, then they’re probably meeting people online. And, um, that rarely works out for the for for most people, and even less so for this precious community. So, um, the answer is that they they just aren’t meeting people necessarily that they are able to date. And and the other thing I find with this, with this, um, community, and when I say this community, I’m referring to the intellectually and developmentally disabled. My theory is that they silo their environments a little bit. So work is work. Church is church. Um, school is school. Dance class is dance class. And I’m not there to date in any of those. Uh, I’m there to do dancing or I’m there to work or I’m there to be in church. Um, and so to create this environment where you’re here to date Suddenly opens up their mind in ways that they maybe would not have been before. Um, we have speed dating events, which is really exciting and people love those. We have another one coming up, um, at the end of this, at the end of either end of June or beginning of July, we’re getting that date firmed up for, for Minnesota.

Katherine Gyolai: Um, and they’re, they’re to date, uh, we have a story of this is a great example, maybe a good answer to your question. Lee. Um, we have a story of a couple who saw each other every Wednesday night for eight years in their dance class. They have been in the same dance class for eight years together, and they never spoke. They saw each other at the speed dating event. They were immediately smitten and they have been inseparable ever since. So it just took creating an environment where dating is what you’re doing here, and dating is the purpose. And you can have a dating mindset at this event for that, for it to open up their minds a little bit to the possibilities of who could become a romantic partner or friendship partner. We also match for friendships. I have some people say to me, I just want to meet more friends, or I just want to have friends who aren’t toxic. Can you introduce me to more friends my age? Um, I do that. We do that as well at Find Love Safely. So, um, you know it. Just to answer your question, it’s it’s not happening. Uh, until now, Find Love Safely is really the first and only service of its kind, and, uh, I my dream is for it to be in every major city in the United States. Right now, it is just in the Twin Cities. And so in Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Minnesota. And we have a location in the San Francisco Bay area, and we’ve just recently launched a location in Los Angeles as well. Um, but my hope is that before too long, we have one everywhere.

Lee Kantor: And then in order for that to happen, you have to find. Are you looking for parents? Is that who typically is kind of launching in a new environment? Is the parent of a child that is going through this?

Katherine Gyolai: Yeah. It’s both. Um, and so the way that our model works is that essentially a parent or an appointed agent is the language we use now that an appointed agent can be a guardian, a conservator, a supported decision maker, power of attorney, someone who’s been appointed to care for that member or to to to support that member or a parent. So they essentially sign up with them. Um, safety is part of our name. It is paramount to to what find love safely is. And so member contact information is never shared. That’s what makes this a little bit different from, uh, Tinder or, um, you know, a hinge or some other service. All matches go through that support person, um, so that it keeps member phone number and email and even last name keeps those safe. So, um, that support person, that adult, it’s it’s 99% of the time. It’s the parent. They are signing up essentially to walk alongside the member throughout this journey. So I send matches to the Guardians. Those are the parents. That’s who I communicate with as the matchmaker. And then they work with their member to say, hey, we got a new match. Let’s take a look. Let’s look at Sophie and see what we think of Sophie. And does she is she seem like somebody you might want to meet that way? The parents have.

Katherine Gyolai: It’s almost like they can be a human firewall around these individuals who are normally so, so vulnerable. Um, so the parents are there to really protect their, their child’s information. And again, we say, child, I should be saying young adult, they’re, um, 18 and older is the age that, that people need to be to be part of, um, safely. But the parent is there then to guide throughout the dating process. They know who their member is talking to so they can help take care of that. You know, make sure that that process is going well, that that’s safe, that that’s a safe experience. Um, and, and that, that really they’re working together. Um, and then the final safely member always has the support of that parent or appointed agent. And at any point those parents can decide, yeah, let’s let’s have the kid, you know, let’s have our kids exchange phone numbers or let’s, um, you know, let’s have them go on a date first, and then if it goes well, then we can have them exchange phone numbers. But but that parent is in place to help make sure that the amount of support is right for that member and that, um, everybody’s on board with, with how it proceeds.

Lee Kantor: And then the the coaching element is you share, I guess, videos or some tips or some strategies for the individuals to kind of make the most out of those, um, matchmaking, uh, incidents.

Katherine Gyolai: That’s right. So I have videos, uh, on the website. I also, um, we’re considering adding coaching as a service to find love safely. So, um, Mary the matchmaker out in California? She’s an occupational therapist. She’s also a certified social skills trainer, so she has some coaching experience. I am, um, ICF certified, so I certainly have coaching, um, experience and certifications. And so what we are what we are going to be doing is adding an element of coaching before and after dates. So that’s going to be an an add on to the membership where you can purchase like uh, coaching for getting ready for the date. What are your concerns? What are you you know, let’s let’s kind of go through how we can show interest. How can we how can we end a date if we’re not interested in seeing somebody again? You know what? Let’s talk about consent. Let’s talk about what unhealthy date behaviors look like. Let’s talk about what healthy behaviors look like. So coaching them through the, you know, the experience before the date and then doing a debrief after and doing some coaching after. So that’s coming up. But currently, uh, we have videos on the website where I’m coaching them through things like how to decide what to wear on your first date. Um, those things may come really naturally to you and I to figure out how to dress, if it’s bowling versus a nice restaurant versus a walk out in the park. Um, it may not come as naturally to everybody. And so spelling some of those things out, uh, is really, really important for this population.

Lee Kantor: And then when they are going through, uh, the matchmaking, have you been doing it long enough where you’ve had matches?

Katherine Gyolai: I have, yes. Yeah. So I just launched this Live Safely in January. Um, I really launched it for my son. I, I, I used to tell people, if I can find a young woman for him to be happy with, then this nothing else can happen. And I this will have been a success and I’m really happy to say he is my first and favorite success story. He has found a young woman named Stella who has down syndrome and they share their lives together. They speak every night on the phone via FaceTime. They sing worship songs to one another. They love to sing Justin Bieber songs together. They do push up contests, they cook together and then they go on dates together. They just went to a movie together this week. So, um, I, you know, he he really feels that she is going she’s she’s his wife. He’s his future wife. So what a it’s been a wonderful success story and he’s not the only one. It’d be easy to say. Oh, great. Sure. The founder, the founder, uh, the founder’s son has success. It’s an easy one. But there are there are several others who’ve actually requested that we pause their membership so that because they have either found, um, found love and they’re like Matthew and Angela, who were the couple that I, um, told you met at, you know, had known each other for eight years, but then started dating, starting the Valentine’s Day event. So they have paused their membership. Several others have paused their memberships because they have expanded their community so much, either through friendships or through potential romantic partners that, um, you know, and our model is we send you unlimited matches until you tell us not to because it’s an annual membership. And so we we’ve certainly had success stories, and we’re building up those stories now and writing them and adding them, adding them to our website.

Lee Kantor: And how many, um, how many young adults are in this boat where this would be a useful is it millions? Like, how many are there about.

Katherine Gyolai: Uh, in the United States?

Lee Kantor: Yeah.

Katherine Gyolai: Oh, millions. Yes, yes. I don’t know the exact number, but it is certainly millions. Um, definitely. Definitely. Who are you know who? Uh, it can be, uh, anywhere from high functioning autism. And I just, you know, I tried out the dating apps, and it’s just not working for me. And I’ve gotten scammed out of money, and I’ve gotten scammed by people saying they are who they say they are or who are. People are not who they say they are. Um, high functioning autism. I have some members who are nonverbal, um, and they only sign. So it’s it is a wide, wide spectrum. And, and you know, I don’t even know if you could say that the you know, I don’t yeah. I don’t know that even I think this is I think this is something if, if people are willing to have that support person in place. Right, a person who doesn’t have disabilities would not be interested in having their mom vet their dates for them. Um, and so really that that alone, that model alone sort of filters out and makes sure that somebody has a disability before entering, uh, find love safely. But I am also laying eyes on them in a virtual call. So nobody is eligible for matches until a matchmaker has had a phone call or a zoom call with the member and their support person. It’s another way that we ensure safety. So, um, but to answer your question, Lee, certainly it’s in the it’s in the many millions, um, of people who would be eligible for this service.

Lee Kantor: And then when you started in Minnesota, was it something you just started running ads like, how did you even get or was it just through your network? Like you knew a lot of folks and you were like, hey, I’m going to start this thing. So sign your your, uh, young adult children up.

Katherine Gyolai: It was um, I didn’t do ads. It’s a combination. Um, it is of, you know, the latter. So I, I have two children with down syndrome. Two children with autism. Um, actually, one of my children has a dual diagnosis of autism and down syndrome. And so then I have a daughter with autism and a son with down syndrome, and then another son with, um, undiagnosed disabilities or unspecified. They’re not. There just wasn’t a diagnosis to go along. So we’ve got the range even just within our own family. Um, and so I had lots of connections that way, just by being in this world very organically and naturally of of having children in this world. Um, so I had lots of connections that way. I will say the excitement around Find Love Safely when it first launched and continues is just remarkable because there’s there really, truly is nothing like this that exists anywhere. And so this has answered find love safely is the answer to many, many, many, many, many parents and guardians and members needs. Um. And so when people heard about it, it was extremely easy to gain traction because people were so excited because nothing like this exists. It really it got its own traction. And, um, it was it’s been so successful in the Twin Cities. That’s why we I knew, I knew I have to get this out to the rest of the world, and I want to do it sooner than later.

Lee Kantor: And then it just organically grew into California through people you had already known.

Katherine Gyolai: Yeah. I was introduced to Mary in California through somebody seeing me on LinkedIn saying, would you mind if I made an introduction between you and my friend Mary, who’s out in California? I talked to Mary ten minutes into the conversation. I said, how would you feel about being a matchmaker out in San Francisco? Let’s see how this goes. And she said, yeah, let’s do it. Um, and so we just launched in San Francisco in May, and we already have members there growing every day. Um, launched in, in Los Angeles just about a week ago. Um, so it’s, you know, it’s it’s really growing. It’s really taking off. We’re doing a speed dating event in partnership with the San Francisco Autism Society out in the Bay area, um, in August. So that’ll be really, really exciting. Um, the traction is just there because there is a huge need to get our this vulnerable population off of online dating apps just off of them. It is it’s really, really, really scary as a parent and guardian to worry about what your kids are able to access online anyway. Um, and then knowing that you’ve got, you’ve got, uh, a loved one with a disability, it’s just even it’s just that much scarier. So the traction has been really I haven’t had to pay for any PR, I haven’t had to take out any ads. It’s just been people willing to share because this is such a needed service.

Lee Kantor: Does the folks at love on the spectrum know about you and what you’re doing?

Katherine Gyolai: Uh, I don’t believe they do. I’m trying to get them to know about me. Um. Very much. I’d love for them to know about me. I think there’d be a really great synergy there. Um, I know some people who know the love on the spectrum producers, and so, um, if you’re listening, keen, I’d love to have a conversation with you, but know that people I’ve been approached to potentially do, um, a series about this work and and about the journey of the actual matchmaking, you know, and love on the spectrum. You see the relationships unfold between the adults with disabilities. But it it could perhaps be really interesting to see the process of the matchmaking and then the experience of the parents. You know what what the what the back. You know what the back story is before they get to the date. What it might be really interesting to see all of that too, and I’d love to share it.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I saw that some of the parents of the of the people on there have their own podcasts and they are, you know, kind of sharing their stories about them in particular, but I think there’s a a lot of people care about those folks and they are interested and want to help if they could. So this is, I think, an amazing service and what a gift you’re giving folks. I mean, um, you know, this is this must be such rewarding work for you to be able to take something that’s so challenging and to make something so useful from that.

Katherine Gyolai: Yeah. Thanks, Lee. It it is incredibly rewarding. I mean, I just really I said it earlier, I feel like this is a culmination of everything in my life has led to this. And being able to do this, to do this work. Um, it’s been exciting to solve the problems and to figure out how are we going to make this work in a way that’s safe but appealing and not restrictive, but also, um, protecting, uh, this population? Um, it’s it’s it’s extremely exciting. Uh, and I’m so privileged to be able to be in a position to do this work, so I’m excited to see where it goes.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more about your coaching or find love safely, what is the website? What is the best way to connect with you?

Katherine Gyolai: Yes. So for my coaching website is just Kathryn Jolie. So that’s k a t h e r I n e last name g o l a.com. And then for my matchmaking service, that website is Find Love. Com.

Lee Kantor: Well Kathryn, thank you so much for sharing your story today doing such important work. And we appreciate you.

Katherine Gyolai: Thanks so much, Leigh. I appreciate the time.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.