A brutal meeting shook Jackie Glaser's internal world — and launched her on a new career of helping singles uncover their strengths

Chany* was a successful professional in her late twenties. She navigated her work relationships with ease, but her dating experiences were in a rut. She was doing all the right things, but the feedback she kept getting was that she was “a great girl, but no connection.”

Then a single friend told her about a Zoom webinar she’d attended. It was run by Jackie Glaser, a dating coach from Los Angeles. “You have to check it out,” her friend effused. “I felt so validated. I had to turn my camera off halfway through because I started crying.” Chany went to Jackie’s website and was intrigued enough to sign up for her nine-week course.

At the outset of the course, Chany was encouraged to be curious about the patterns in her dating and to get to the root of her behavior. She finally recognized that in the home she’d grown up in, the right thing was valued at the expense of any emotional discomfort. Therefore, she never learned how to process, or even acknowledge, her feelings. Now, as an adult, whenever difficult feelings came up, Chany shut down her emotions and functioned from a completely intellectual mindset. This pattern strongly hindered her dating, where the ability to be open is obviously extremely important.

Jackie helped her learn to synthesize her intellect and her emotions. A few months after taking the course, Chany excitedly texted Jackie that she had just scheduled a fourth date, something that had never happened before.

Helping women in this way is the fulfillment of a dream for Jackie. Over the many years that she was waiting for her zivug, Jackie had promised Hashem that if she got married, she would use her skills to help singles.

A Star Down Under

Seventeen years ago, Jackie Glaser (née Engel) was living a secular life in Sydney, Australia. She was working as a psychologist, altruistically motivated to help as many people as she could, when she was hired for a one-time appearance on Australia’s Today Show to share her opinion on a dating poll.

While she wasn’t sure about the existence of a higher power at that point in her life, Jackie took the opportunity to say what she later recognized as a tefillah. “When I went into the network, a major network, I remember saying aloud to myself, ‘I would love a regular gig on this show.’ I put it out there, and then let it go.”

She went on the show for that segment, and the next day, received a phone call from the network asking if she could come back. They had gotten so many “Dear Jackie” responses to the segment that they wanted her to address those letters and emails that had come in. Three days after that, they asked her to come in again, this time to be on a panel. While she was sitting in the makeup room, one of the staff told her that this was highly unusual — they never asked a guest back so many times.

“I was just enjoying the ride,” Jackie recalls, speaking with me via Zoom from her sunny home in Los Angeles. “I didn’t know they were secretly interviewing me. Which is good, because I would’ve been much more nervous!” Two weeks after the panel, Jackie was invited to be the resident psychologist on the show.

Jackie lived the dream, working as the Australian Today Show psychologist for two years. During that time, she was able to help people on a national scale, with one million viewers each week. It’s easy to see how Jackie, with her engaging smile, warm demeanor, and a chein that jumps through my computer screen, was a natural fit for television.

While her star was rising down under, Jackie’s younger brother had become frum and moved to Israel. He encouraged her to come visit.