[00:00:00] Podcast Intro: Are you ready to change your habits, sculpt your destiny, and light up your path to greatness? Welcome to the epicenter of transformation. This is Mic Unplugged. We’ll help you identify your because, so you can create a routine that’s not just productive, but powerful. You’ll embrace the art of evolution, adapt strategies to stay ahead of the game, and take a step toward the extraordinary.

[00:00:29] So let’s unleash your potential. Now here’s Nick. 

[00:00:34] Mick Hunt: Welcome back to another episode of Mic Unplugged, where we challenge you to look beyond the why and find your because. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a special one for you today. We’re talking about love and how to find it in all the right places. We’re diving into the world of romance with one of the most sought after experts in the field.

[00:00:52] She’s a featured guru on good morning, America, a regular on shows like Steve Harvey and Kelly Clarson, and she is the founder of the smart dating Academy. She’s transformed the lives of thousands with her cutting edge dating strategies. Everyone, please welcome the incredible, the incomparable, the dynamic.

[00:01:12] Bella Gandhi. Bella, welcome to the show. 

[00:01:15] Bella Gandhi: Oh my gosh. I’m, I’m blushing. So thank you for that amazing introduction. I’m honored to be here. 

[00:01:22] Mick Hunt: It is all the truth. It is all the truth. Bella, looking for love in all the wrong places today. We’re going to tell people how to do it at the right way. How did you get started?

[00:01:32] What was your reason for doing this? Like dating, you know, since what, 2000, there’s been a million different platforms for people to do it the wrong way. What was it that made Bella say, nah, there’s a better way to do this. And more importantly, there’s a right way to do this. 

[00:01:47] Bella Gandhi: So I have probably the most non traditional background to be doing what I’m doing.

[00:01:53] I’m a freelancer. finance major with an accidental degree in German language. I came out of mergers and acquisitions and then owned a manufacturing company with my family. But since I was 19 years old, I had these instincts that I started setting people up and watching them get into great relationships.

[00:02:14] I stopped. Dating people that weren’t good for me, put together my own little analysis, the common denominator of all of the problems, which was me, got my dating house in order, have a great husband, have been married over 20 years. I set up so many people that I knew there was this little voice inside of me that says, you’re supposed to do this.

[00:02:39] And so in 2009, I put aside my, I don’t know if you ever put aside your fear of failure of, you know, not knowing what to do, being good enough, can I do this? And I just kind of said, okay, I’ve got one life to live. It’s failure or regret. I’ll take failure over regret any day. And so I started it and have been.

[00:03:04] I’m amazed and I’m so humbled and still get blown away every day that this is the work that I get to do with single people every day. Because finding love, even if you’re, you know, a badass rock star in every other pie piece of your life, this is the most tender, fragile, vulnerable one. For everybody on earth.

[00:03:28] So to be able to really be the personal trainer for someone’s love life is a distinct honor that I will never take for granted. 

[00:03:38] Mick Hunt: That’s amazing. And you’ve mastered that art of relationship coaching, relationship development, what are the top three skills you believe someone needs to master? To be successful in modern day dating.

[00:03:50] Bella Gandhi: Well, there’s so many. I think the first thing is, is you have to focus on being the best version of yourself and doing that introspection and not just jumping from relationship to relationship, Lily pad to Lily pad, you know, kind of saying, well, that was her fault and she wasn’t good. And she was crazy again.

[00:04:13] Like I said, in the beginning. What’s the common denominator in all of this? It’s ourselves, right? And so do I need to fall more in love with myself? Do I need to become more self aware? Do I need to become a better data? Maybe I need to have a dating plan. Anything big you want to do in your life, you’ve got to have a plan, right?

[00:04:34] And with dating, you want to have a plan that includes online dating. That includes meeting people in real life and getting set up with people. So there’s so much to this process that we have to think about. And it’s more complicated, for example, than, you know, I want to get straight A’s. That’s great.

[00:04:51] That’s what I call unilateral. You study hard, you get the A, but in the dating world, you can be doing as best as you can, but there’s still another process. person involved in this. It’s bilateral. So it’s complicated. 

[00:05:05] Mick Hunt: Wow, that’s amazing. I want to unpack that a little bit. So again, amazing background that you have.

[00:05:11] Bella Gandhi: Thank you. 

[00:05:11] Mick Hunt: How do you help your clients imagine new possibilities in their love life? Because I have to imagine new And a lot of people come to you and they feel like they’re stuck in their dating patterns, right? So how do you help them imagine new possibilities? 

[00:05:24] Bella Gandhi: So we help them to understand why they’re stuck.

[00:05:28] And I always say, if your picker, the way you pick people is broken, it’s not your fault, right? Most of us have broken pickers or have had broken pickers. So it’s really re imagining what a happy, healthy person you are. Relationship should look like. I know you just said to me when we were in the green room that it’s going to be your one year anniversary and relationships are work, but not that soul sucking, soul crushing kind of work.

[00:05:58] Overall, a good relationship is easy. And I don’t mean easy, meaning you never have to work on it, but you can navigate through the ups and downs of life pretty easily with the right person. 

[00:06:10] Mick Hunt: Totally agree. And this is what I found. And I would love your opinion on this. I say this all the time of in relationships.

[00:06:18] There’s no such thing as 50 50, right? You don’t give half of yourself to someone. And I want people to stop saying that it’s a 50 50 thing. It is 100 100. And then you work together to make it work. But. I love that. And that’s the thing. I’d love to hear what the expert Bella has to say. 

[00:06:34] Bella Gandhi: I love the way you just framed that Mick.

[00:06:36] I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s kind of like when people, they call your significant other your plus one. And why do they say that? Because you are whole on your own. You are not 0. 5 and that person is 0. 5 that completes you. You are complete as yourself. So I. couldn’t agree with you more. It’s a hundred and it’s a hundred, right?

[00:07:01] And in that hundred and a hundred, you’re going to have to flex every day. She wants to go here. You want to go here. I need to do this for work. So you’ve got to take the kids. It’s always that sometimes you’re going to give more and sometimes you’re going to receive more, right? It’s like when people ask the question, Can you have it all?

[00:07:21] And I always say you can have it all. You just can’t have it all every single day. And relationships are very much the same. But if you come from the mindset and I love what you said about a hundred and a hundred, if you come from the mindset and I’m going to be a hundred percent in the give bucket, right?

[00:07:40] I want to give and to be the better partner. It’s going to be hard to go wrong with that mindset. 

[00:07:47] Mick Hunt: That’s amazing. You’ve been doing this a while, what’s been the biggest change that you’ve seen in the dating game? 

[00:07:54] Bella Gandhi: You know, it’s interesting. I think humans in general, we are pair bonders. We want to meet a person.

[00:08:03] I think that the fact that we’re living so much longer, we have so many more expectations out of A relationship, right? And our significant other, you know, if you ask your grandparents or if I ask mine, what did you want in a husband or a wife? And they’d say, I wanted a partner. I wanted someone to do this today.

[00:08:26] We say, I want my best friend. I want a partner. I want a soulmate. I want a lover. I want someone who I can do things with confided, right? We, Our expectations are so much higher than they have ever been at any time in the past. Think about it. At the year 1900, the average life expectancy was 30 years old.

[00:08:48] Today in 2024, it’s well into the seventies. We’re living so much longer. We expect so much more of one person. And I think the right way to look at this is. You’re going to have six to ten relationships with this person over the course of your relationship Because you’re going to evolve and they’re going to evolve it 

[00:09:13] Mick Hunt: was powerful right there How many relationships are you gonna have with that person 

[00:09:17] Bella Gandhi: six to ten relationships?

[00:09:19] Right. I got married young, still married to the same guy and our relationships evolved. We were two, you know, high powered careers traveling around the world, sometimes living in separate places. Then you have your first baby, then you have your second one. Then they get older. As they get older, you change as a parent.

[00:09:44] I have one that went to college two years ago. I’ll be an empty nester in two years. So my relationship is going to change again. I am going to change again. So this is what I mean by that. So it’s amazing. And I think we need to think about this and we need to constantly think about who am I now and who is he now and where do we want to be together as the people that we are now, which is very different than we were 23 and 24 years old.

[00:10:14] Mick Hunt: That was so powerful, Bella. I mean, I haven’t even thought about it in that sense, but you’re totally right. I mean, we change as humans by nature. We should, 

[00:10:24] Bella Gandhi: we should because we’re growing, 

[00:10:26] Mick Hunt: but how many of us put that same time and energy and effort into changing and evolving our relationship? Because if our spouse, if our significant other, if our plus 1 is also changing, we can’t do or be the same things in the relationship that we were 3, 4, 5, 7 years ago.

[00:10:44] That was powerful about it. 

[00:10:46] Bella Gandhi: Oh, I’m so glad. And I think that, think about it from this way, and sometimes we end up throwing the baby out with the bath water. Like, well, if you think this and I think this, then we just need to, you know, head to divorce court. And I’m not saying one doesn’t, but I’m saying.

[00:11:02] Really think about, is there something that you want that you’re not getting? What does the other person want that they’re not getting? Who are you now? And having these conversations with a facilitator to help you. I have so many people that I work with, Mick, that are now, you know, in their 50s, sometimes in their 60s, and they’ll look back and they’ll say, you know, sometimes youth is wasted on the young.

[00:11:26] If I could go back and, uh, I wouldn’t have divorced my first wife, right, knowing what I know now, I could have made that work. 

[00:11:38] Mick Hunt: That’s crazy. I’m in, I’m in thought right now. I’m in thought right now. That’s, that’s, that’s wild. You know, one of the things that I always talk about, you know, Less brown. One of my personal mentors is kind of termed this phrase called the Mick factor, right?

[00:11:53] So it’s mastery, imagination, character and keep going. And we’ve talked about mastery and imagination just from the conversations that you and I aren’t actually having. How important to you is character? In the relationship, because I know it can be a challenge, especially, you know, you meet someone new and everyone always puts their best foot forward.

[00:12:10] It’s like a job interview, right? Like on a job. They’re the perfect candidate. Right? But then all of a sudden, when they start, it’s like, wait, where’s this person? The interview, they haven’t walked in the door. And to me, that’s character. How, how strong and how important is character in the relationship space?

[00:12:26] Bella Gandhi: It couldn’t be more important. Character is everything. I tell people you can change teeth. You can get more fit. You can change somebody’s wardrobe. You can redo their house, but you cannot teach or change. 

[00:12:45] Mick Hunt: So for everyone listening, if you’re in the dating world, I promise you character should be the number one trait that you look for for me.

[00:12:52] Anyway, that’s what it was for me. I can always, 

[00:12:55] Bella Gandhi: that’s right. And knowing what you value and knowing that that person values the same things, it just makes the relationship. So much easier. 

[00:13:06] Mick Hunt: All right. So let’s talk about keep going. So in relationships more than anything, there’s failure. You know, the 1st person you ever dated is not the last person you’re ever with in life.

[00:13:16] Right? So rejection happens. How do you coach people? On the resiliency to keep going because a lot of times when we’re rejected, that creates a very low moment for us. And I don’t think people understand how powerful the emotion of rejection can be in people. How do you encourage people to not let that be the end all for them?

[00:13:36] Bella Gandhi: Rejection is inevitable. It’s how we think about it ultimately. Right. And I always say if somebody rejects you, then they weren’t the right person for you. So don’t let it get you down. Does it hurt? Absolutely. Do you need to go back and lick your wounds and heal after rejection? Yeah. But look at it this way.

[00:13:59] Most people are not right for you. If you walk into a bar, a cocktail party, a fundraiser, a meetup group, do you expect that 30 out of 100 people are going to be right for you? No. It’s less than 1%. You might find 30 percent of the room attractive, but again, is that character? Is that compatibility? Is that values based?

[00:14:24] No. And like you said, everybody looks good in the beginning, but you’re dating that person’s representative for the first three to six months, right? And then when the mask starts to come off, who is that person really? And that is where character comes in a lot with character. You kind of see the person as they are from the beginning, but, and this is why.

[00:14:47] You need to be intentional and slow in the dating world. We want everything instantly in the 21st century. We want a three day rule. We want everything to be Amazon primed to our house. We want it fast. Here’s what I’ll tell you at smart dating Academy, nobody’s getting into an exclusive relationship, Mick, until they’ve been unfaithful.

[00:15:13] 15 or more dates over the course of at least three months with this person. And I am not saying 15 dates in 15 days. I’m talking about having a funnel, having a bench of people where I’m helping to filter, looking in their inboxes, helping to read profiles, looking at messaging. My clients have dating graphs, what good relationship trajectory should look like.

[00:15:36] They’ve got dating scorecards, right? We’re a whole thing. And so through that. That’s where you start to slow things down. That’s where you start to break your patterns. That’s where you start to find someone who is actually really good for you. And this is how we’ve had zero divorces in 15 years. 

[00:15:59] Mick Hunt: That’s insane, but it makes total sense.

[00:16:01] And for those that are watching the video podcast, you saw me almost laughing on the inside, because I have a friend who I promise I am not going to say their names on this podcast, but when you said 15 dates is the minimum requirement. I have a friend, I have friends that are married right now, Bella, that have been married for 20 years that haven’t been on 15 dates from the moment they first met each other to now.

[00:16:26] So I know they’re listening. 15, Bella? 

[00:16:30] Bella Gandhi: 15! Let me put this into perspective, Mick, because your thought around that is like everybody else’s. So, when I tell my clients, I want you to wait 15 days, right? And they’ll say, well, okay, that’s a long time. I’m like, let’s say your average day is two hours. That’s 30 hours with that person.

[00:16:50] That’s like Monday and half of Tuesday. 

[00:16:52] Mick Hunt: That’s right. So for everyone listening, I know some people that have been on three dates and then got married. Bella saying you’re messing up. 

[00:16:59] Bella Gandhi: I’m saying a lot of people get lucky. Look, my own parents met on a Sunday. They got engaged on Thursday and they were married 72 hours later and they’ve now been married for 50 years.

[00:17:08] Mick Hunt: Okay. 

[00:17:09] Bella Gandhi: What I’m saying is if you have a history, Okay. Of being in relationships that don’t serve you, that you’re not happy, they end badly and you’re going, what can I do differently? I’m not saying you can’t have love at first sight. You can’t go on, on one day, meet somebody at a bar, sleep with them, and then get married and have three kids and live in the suburbs and have a white picket fence.

[00:17:34] All of that is possible. But if you ask those people, how did it work? And you know what they’ll say? It was sheer luck, right? So here, when you have the opportunity to do this differently, and especially if you haven’t found the person that you want yet, you have no harm in trying something different because we all know that the definition of insanity, it’s like, keep doing the same thing over and over again.

[00:17:59] And what you want to find true love and you’re not. This 

[00:18:03] Mick Hunt: is amazing, Bella. So walk us through what it’s like working with Bella. So what would that roadmap look like other than, you know, it’s going to be 37 dates before you can get married. So walk us through what that process looks like for Bella. 

[00:18:17] Bella Gandhi: Oh my gosh.

[00:18:18] You’ve got like, when you hire us. Usually for six to 12 months, you’ve got professional best friends that are helping you through this process, like personal trainers for your love lives. You detail all of the details about your life, how you grew up, what was it like growing up at home? Was there a mom?

[00:18:38] Was there a dad? How did they relate to each other? And you talk us through all of your significant relationships. What worked, what didn’t work? What was their responsibility? What was yours? And so through this Constellation of data points that we get our first meeting with people is three hours over zoom We work with people all over the globe So it doesn’t matter where you are and it’s called the jumpstart session and it’s in that session where we are working The magic, the juice and helping people to really fix their partners.

[00:19:11] Wipe the slate clean, get excited to do things differently and jump back into the dating pool. So after your jumpstart session, we have a photo studio in Chicago. Everybody gets to come to do a very fun, lifestyly, cool photo shoot. I know what people are looking for in online dating. And so we give people a ton of granular help on how do you look your personal best?

[00:19:34] I’ve got people sending me photos all day long of what they want to bring to the photo shoot. I’m like, yes, no, no, no. Go get that short and that needs tailoring. So we’re in the weeds with people because when you look your best, you feel your best. I wrote a book during COVID that produces the perfect online profile.

[00:19:52] So what we’ve done essentially is we’ve taken a lot of the friction out of this. The things that stop people, the things that people do wrong, right? I was like, well, no one has good pictures. I’m just going to take it in house and make sure everybody gets on the conveyor belt to do this sequentially in the right way.

[00:20:10] And then after we quote unquote, launch you with your profile, your jumpstarted, you’ve got the right photos. Then we’re coaching you three times per month live. And it’s awesome. And you’re talking through. All of your dates with us. So we teach you how we’re going to coach you. But what we do is we provide that sounding board so that you don’t have to listen to your friends and your family, all of whom love you.

[00:20:35] They’re well intentioned, but they don’t know how to do this. They know their own experiences, but they don’t know what’s absolutely right. for you. That’s how our process works. And it’s been great. And when you go through phase one and you meet somebody and you’ve got a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a partner, then we watch that relationship for 6 to 12 months after that to make sure there’s no wolves in sheep’s clothing.

[00:20:57] Mick Hunt: Okay. So what percentage of your dating, I don’t want to call it setups cause it’s not dating setups. How many of your dating situations are both your clients where partner a and partner B are both clients of yours? 

[00:21:11] Bella Gandhi: Very few. Okay. Very few. So we’re coaching people. If I get that feeling, Mick, that I think, let’s say if you were my client and I’m like, Oh.

[00:21:20] My God, I need to introduce you to Lila. You guys are going to love each other. Then we connect people. But our goal is to help people understand how to become their own matchmakers. And we’re along for the ride. 

[00:21:34] Mick Hunt: I love it. So I’m impressed. And the reason I asked that question, because I know you have a high batting average, your success rate’s really high and you’re doing it where just one of them is your client, not both.

[00:21:45] That’s freaking. selling you like crazy right there. That’s amazing. 

[00:21:50] Bella Gandhi: Wow. I never thought about it that way. 

[00:21:52] Mick Hunt: Yeah. Cause it’s real easy, right? If you have both profiles and it’s like, Oh, this is a match, but you’re saying you’re taking this one person and making them the best version of themselves in the dating world.

[00:22:02] Like that’s That’s insane. 

[00:22:03] Bella Gandhi: And they’re going into the wild. 

[00:22:05] Mick Hunt: Yes. So speaking of this wild, because technology changes every day now, right? Like, technology changes every day. So I can only imagine the challenges that are put in front of you and your team and this new world, especially with AI. I, as a business owner, I didn’t personally send this, but an AI clone of me.

[00:22:26] Was sent to my team information. 

[00:22:30] Bella Gandhi: What 

[00:22:31] Mick Hunt: it is crazy what is going and I’m not saying all AI is bad. So I’m definitely not saying that at all, but I can totally see situations where the 2024 and 2025 version of catfish. Is you’re going to show up and you were talking to a digital clone the entire time. How are you preparing for this new wave of technology and AI and what, what parameters are you putting around your clients to make sure that they’re not getting catfish?

[00:22:56] Bella Gandhi: So there’s a lot of telltale signs, Mick, about catfishers, right? Whether they’re AI or they’re sitting in a call center in Nigeria or India, right? A lot of these people, they. Don’t want to connect live and that’s what’s so interesting. They might talk on the phone, but they certainly don’t want to get on video and they don’t want to be taken around into different parts of their house or walk you around.

[00:23:24] So there’s a lot of ways that we help them. To keep our clients safe. I mean, an easy thing. If you’re a listener and you’re thinking of dating, dipping your toe back into the dating pool, get a Google voice number. So you didn’t even have to give out your real cell phone number to somebody. It’s free. It’s easy to use.

[00:23:41] You can call and you can text from it because today we can be Google able by our cell phones. 

[00:23:46] Mick Hunt: Absolutely. Bella, there’s so many places we could go. Like we’re going to have to come back and do a part two, because this is, this is amazing and all the things that you. Talk about and speak about, like I told you, I’ve been a fan for a long time and listen to, to a lot of your talks.

[00:24:01] And I can say this because my wife is going to listen to this podcast. Like Bella was somewhat influential. I wasn’t a client, but you know, there’s enough information that Bella gives out for free that everyone listening, like just. Go, go find it. It’s out there. I promise. So, Bella, I thank you for that because you were inspirational.

[00:24:19] Bella Gandhi: Oh, thank you so much. Well, right back at you, my friend. You’re inspiring too. Your story is amazing. 

[00:24:25] Mick Hunt: I appreciate that. So, where can people find Bella? And then obviously we’ll have a link to the Academy as well in the show notes. 

[00:24:34] Bella Gandhi: Yeah. Go to smartdatingacademy. com sign up for our free newsletter list. You can follow me on Instagram at smart dating Academy, and I have a podcast called the smart dating Academy podcast with tons of information.

[00:24:49] about dating interviews with amazing experts that are in dating and relationships. And a lot of client love stories. So you can actually hear how so many of the people that we’ve had the fortune to serve, they were just like you. And they were scared and they didn’t know. And they had picked people. We have people that have been married four times, people that have never been married, people that are in their seventies.

[00:25:15] So if you think, I don’t really know if love exists for me, I’m going to tell you it does go have a listen. 

[00:25:22] Mick Hunt: Absolutely. And I love Bella’s podcasts. And here’s what I’m also going to tell you, because I have a daughter and two sons that are all in their twenties, all of recently graduated college or once graduating the other two recently graduated.

[00:25:34] As a parent, have your kids listen to Bella’s podcast, because I promise you, number one, you’re going to help be a part of their lives by being that supportive parent. They’re going to listen to things that Bella says that, you know, maybe you’re saying the same thing, but it’s great when Bella and her team are saying it on the podcast as well, too.

[00:25:51] So parents out there, have your kids download and subscribe to Bella’s podcast as well. Bella, you’re amazing. 

[00:25:57] Bella Gandhi: Thank you so much for the honor of being on today. 

[00:26:00] Mick Hunt: I appreciate you. And for all the listeners, remember your because is your superpower. Go unleash it. 

[00:26:05] Podcast Outro: Thanks for listening to Mick Unplugged. We hope this episode helps you take the next step toward the extraordinary and launches a revolution in your life.

[00:26:14] Don’t forget to rate and review the podcast and be sure to check us out on YouTube at Mick Unplugged. Remember, stay empowered, stay inspired and stay unplugged.