A relationship coach wants professional women to stop dating with 'intern energy'

• Anwar White is a dating coach who has 14 years of experience helping singles find love.
• One of his best pieces of advice for single working women is to date with "CEO energy."

For many people, dating is like a job.

But Anwar White, a dating and relationships coach, says the secret to success for single women seeking a long-term partner is slightly more nuanced.

White, who lives in Montreal and often shares advice with his more than 583,500 followers on TikTok, told Business Insider he had 14 years of experience helping successful single women find love.

A common issue he's identified among his clients is that their dating approach mirrors how they became successful in their careers — by being highly proactive and communicative. White likes to call it having "intern energy."

Generally, interns work hard in hopes of getting a job. "That's what a lot of women and some men do as well," White said about dating. "They're auditioning to get the role, the position of boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband."

"The things that make you high-achieving in your professional life actually can hurt you in love," he added. "A lot of women out there, especially high-achieving women, will text and confirm dates. They work very hard and hope their work product speaks for itself."

Ditching 'intern energy' for 'CEO energy'

But White said that in the search for love, single women "actually have to work half as hard to get twice the results," an approach he likes to call "CEO energy."

"The mindset and the CEO energy is about dictating and choosing what you want," he said, adding that he'd encourage clients to date multiple people at once to "diversify" their options.

"If you're in a big meeting, the CEO, he or she, is not really the first person to talk," he said. "The directors, the VPs, the managers, they want to be the first ones to talk. They want to be the first ones to set their stance on whatever issue is on hand. CEOs generally will listen to everyone first and then make a decision."

In dating, White said, professional women should be more like CEOs because it would help them set boundaries.

He said those who dated like interns had to "go with the flow" and typically do what they were told, but people who dated like CEOs had "a clear vision" of what they wanted.

He added that it was about having the energy of, "I'm going to listen and observe what you've got going on and then, based on that, be able to share my truth, my perspective."

Being in control and having fun along the way

One of White's clients told BI that adopting his advice to date like a CEO hadn't just improved her dating life but made it more fun than ever.

Sherri, a 34-year-old sales rep based in Washington, DC, who asked not to be referred to by her last name for privacy reasons, said she paid $6,000 to sign up for White's VIP dating program in August.

"I had a few multiple-year-long relationships back-to-back, but I never found a person that was quite the right fit," she said.

Like many other ambitious women, Sherri found herself balancing a "go with the flow" dating approach with her instinct as a professional to be hyper-organized — aka "intern energy."

"Before this program, I could date one guy at a time because I was always waiting for them to call me, waiting for them to ask me on a date," she said. "Now I am the CEO of my dating life, and I control my schedule, control the pace of all my relationships."

Sherri said that if she didn't like an aspect of a date or if something made her uncomfortable, she wouldn't shy away from speaking her mind to say things such as, "I really didn't like that," or: "When you just said that, it made me feel like this way. Was that your intention?"

Unlike some friends outside the program, Sherri said, she wasn't "burned out" by her dating life because she called the shots.

She said dating was "almost like a hobby" now — and one that she was enjoying on the journey to meeting her person.

"I'm looking for a needle in a haystack," Sherri said. "I understand that I'm going to have to get through a lot of hay to get there, and I'm going to make sure that it is enjoyable every step of the way."