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"Mick Unplugged" is a transformative podcast that challenges listeners to move beyond the conventional 'Why' and embrace the empowering realm of 'Because.' Hosted by Mick Hunt, the voice of Modern Leadership, this podcast is designed for leaders, doers, and anyone aspiring to create meaningful impact in both their personal and professional lives.
Each episode delves into the principles of Modern Leadership, focusing on discovering your 'Because'—your core driving force—and how it can turn dreams into reality and aspirations into actionable steps. With practical advice, real-life stories, and forward-thinking insights, you’ll learn to make your 'Because' a daily focus, fueling your journey toward success and fulfillment.
Whether you’re looking to deepen your motivation, set meaningful goals, or apply modern leadership theories to overcome challenges, "Mick Unplugged" provides the tools, strategies, and insights to guide your path. Subscribe now and start transforming your life with purpose and modern leadership principles.
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 Mick 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.
Intro:So let's unleash your potential. Now here's Mick.
Mick Hunt:Welcome back to another episode of Mick 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. She's a featured guru on Good Morning America, a regular on shows like Steve Harvey and Kelly Clarkson, and she is the founder of the Smart Dating Academy.
Mick Hunt:She's transformed the lives of 1,000 with her cutting edge dating strategies. Everyone, please welcome the incredible, the incomparable, the dynamic, Bella Gandhi. Bella, welcome to the show.
Bella Gandhi:Oh my gosh. I'm I'm blushing. So thank you for that amazing introduction. I'm honored to be here.
Mick Hunt:It is all the truth. It is all the truth. Bella, looking for love in all the wrong places. Today, we're gonna tell people how to do it at the right way. How did you get started?
Mick Hunt:What was your reason for doing this, like, dating? You know, since, what, 2000, there's been a 1000000 different platforms for people to to do it the wrong way. What was it that made Bella say, now there's a better way to do this, and more importantly, there's a right way to do this?
Bella Gandhi:So I have probably the most nontraditional background to be doing what I'm doing. I'm a 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. 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.
Bella Gandhi:Got my dating house in order, have a great husband, have been married over 20 years. I set up so many people, Mick, that I knew there was this little voice inside of me that says, you're supposed to do this. 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 kinda said, okay, I've got one life to live.
Bella Gandhi:It's failure or regret. I'll take failure over regret any day. And so I started it and have been, 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 bad ass rock star in every other pie piece of your life, this is the most tender, fragile, vulnerable one for everybody on earth. 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.
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?
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, like I said in the beginning, what's the common denominator in all of this? It's ourselves. Right?
Bella Gandhi: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 dater? Maybe I need to have a dating plan. Anything big you wanna do in your life, you've gotta have a plan.
Bella Gandhi:Right? And with dating, you wanna 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 wanna get straight a's. That's great. That's what I call unilateral.
Bella Gandhi: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 person involved in this. It's bilateral. So it's complicated.
Mick Hunt:Wow. That's amazing. I wanna unpack that a little bit. So, again, amazing background that you have. How do you help your clients imagine new possibilities in their love life?
Mick Hunt:Because I have to imagine that 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?
Bella Gandhi:So we help them to understand why they're stuck. And I always say if you're 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 reimagining what a happy healthy relationship should look like.
Bella Gandhi:I know you just said to me when we were in the green room that it's gonna be your 1 year anniversary. And relationships are work, but not that soul sucking, soul crushing kind of work. 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 Right. Pretty easily with the right person.
Mick Hunt:Totally agree. And this is what I found, and and I would love your opinion on this. I say this all the time in relationships. There's no such thing as 5050. Right?
Mick Hunt:You don't give half of yourself to someone. And I want people to stop saying that. It's a 5050 thing. It is a 100, a 100, and then you work together to make it work. But before I say that and that's the thing, I'd love to hear what the expert Bella has to say.
Bella Gandhi:I love the way you just frame that, Mick. 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.
Bella Gandhi: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 100 and it's a 100.
Bella Gandhi:Right? And in that 100 and 100, you're gonna have to flex every day. She wants to go here. You wanna go here. I need to do this for work, so you've gotta take the kids.
Bella Gandhi:It's always that sometimes you're gonna give more and sometimes you're going to receive more. Right? It's like when people ask the question, can you have it all? And I always say, you can have it all. You just can't have it all every single day.
Bella Gandhi:And relationships are very much the same. But if you come from the mindset, and I love what you said about a 100a100. If you come from the mindset and I'm going to be a 100% in the give bucket. Right? I want to give and to be the better partner.
Bella Gandhi:It's gonna be hard to go wrong with that mindset.
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?
Bella Gandhi:You know, it's interesting. I think humans in general, we are pair bonders. We want to meet a person. I think that the fact that we're living so much longer, we have so many more expectations out of a relationship. Right?
Bella Gandhi: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? They'd say, I wanted a partner. I wanted someone to do this. Today, we say, I want my best friend. I wanna partner.
Bella Gandhi:I want a soulmate. I want a lover. I want someone who I can do things with confide in. Right? We our expectations are so much higher than they have ever been at any time in the past.
Bella Gandhi:Think about it. At the year 1900, the average life expectancy was 30 years old. Today, in 2024, it's well into the seventies. We're living so much longer. We expect so much more of one person.
Bella Gandhi:And I think the right way to look at this is you're going to have 6 to 10 relationships with this person over the course of your relationship because you're going to evolve and they're going to evolve.
Mick Hunt:That was powerful right there. How many relationships are you gonna have with that person?
Bella Gandhi:6 to 10 relationships. Right? Yes. I got married young, still married to the same guy and our relationships evolved. We were 2, 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.
Bella Gandhi:As they get older, you change as a parent. I have one that went to college 2 years ago. I'll be an empty nester in 2 years. So my relationship is going to change again. I am going to change again.
Bella Gandhi: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 wanna be together as the people that we are now, which is very different than we were 23 and 24 years old.
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.
Bella Gandhi:We should. We should because we're growing.
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 one is also changing, we can't do or be the same things in the relationship that we were 3, 4, 5, 7 years ago. That was powerful, Bella.
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 bathwater. 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 really think about, is there something that you want that you're not getting?
Bella Gandhi: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've so many people that I work with, Mick, that are now, you know, in their fifties, sometimes in their sixties. And they'll look back and they'll say, you know, sometimes youth is wasted on the young.
Bella Gandhi:If I could go back and I wouldn't have divorced my first wife. Right? Knowing what I know now, I could have made that work. Wow.
Mick Hunt:That's crazy. Mhmm. I'm I'm in I'm in thought right now. I'm in thought right now. That's that's wild.
Mick Hunt:You know, one of the things that I always talk about, you know, Les Brown, one of my personal mentors has kind of termed this phrase called the Mick factor. Right? So it's mastery, imagination, character, and keep going. And 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?
Mick Hunt:Because I know it can be a challenge, especially, you know, you meet someone new and everyone always puts their best foot forward. It's like a job interview. Right? Like, on a job, they are the perfect candidate. Right?
Mick Hunt:But then all of a sudden, when they start, it's like, wait. Where is this person that interviewed? 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?
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.
Bella Gandhi:You can redo their house, but you cannot teach or change character.
Mick Hunt:So for everyone listening, if you're in the dating world, I I promise you character should be the number one trait that you look for. For for me, anyway. That's what it was for me. I can always speak for myself.
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.
Mick Hunt:Alright. So let's talk about keep going. So in relationships, more than anything, there's failure. You know, the first person you ever dated is not the last person you're ever with in life. Right?
Mick Hunt:So rejection happens. How do you coach people on the resiliency to 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 offer?
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.
Bella Gandhi: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, most people are not right for you.
Bella Gandhi:If you walk into a bar, a cocktail party, a fundraiser, a meetup group, do you expect that 30 out of a 100 people are gonna be right for you? No. It's less than 1%. You might find 30% of the room attractive. But again, is that character?
Bella Gandhi:Is that compatibility? Is that values based? No. And like you said, everybody looks good in the beginning, but you're dating that person's representative for the 1st 3 to 6 months. Right?
Bella Gandhi: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 kinda see the person as they are from the beginning, but and this is why you need to be intentional and slow in the dating world. We want everything instantly in the 21st century. We want a 3 date rule.
Bella Gandhi: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 on 15 or more dates over the course of at least 3 months with this person. And I am not saying 15 dates in 15 days.
Bella Gandhi: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? They've got dating scorecards. Right?
Bella Gandhi: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 0 divorces in 15 years.
Mick Hunt:That's insane. But it makes total sense. 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 gonna 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 made for 20 years that haven't been on 15 dates from the moment they first made each other to now. So I I know they're listening.
Mick Hunt:15, Bella?
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 dates. Right? And they'll say, well, okay.
Bella Gandhi:That's a long time. I'm like, let's say your average date is 2 hours. That's 30 hours with that person. That's, like, Monday and half of Tuesday.
Mick Hunt:That's right. So for everyone listening, I know some people that have been on 3 dates and then got married. Belle is saying you're messing up.
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.
Mick Hunt:Okay.
Bella Gandhi:What I'm saying is if you have a history 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 3 kids and live in the suburbs and have a white picket fence. All of that is possible. But if you ask those people, how did it work?
Bella Gandhi: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 and what? You wanna find true love, and you're not going
Mick Hunt:This is amazing, Bella. So walk us through what it's like working with Bella. So what would that road map look like other than, you know, it's gonna be 37 dates before you can get married. So walk us through what that process looks like for Bella.
Bella Gandhi:Oh my gosh. You've got like when you hire us usually for 6 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? Was there a dad? How did they relate to each other?
Bella Gandhi:And you talk us through all of your significant relationships. What worked? What didn't work? What was their responsibility? What was yours?
Bella Gandhi:And so through this constellation of data points that we get, our first meeting with people is 3 hours over Zoom. We work with people all over the globe, so it doesn't matter where you are. And it's called the jump start session. And it's in that session where we are working the magic, the juice, and helping people to really fix their partners, wipe the slate clean, get excited to do things differently, and jump back into the dating pool. So after your jump start session, we have a photo studio in Chicago.
Bella Gandhi:Everybody gets to come to do a very fun, lifestyle y, 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. I've got people sending me photos all day long of what they wanna bring to the photo shoot. I'm like, yes, no, no, no. Go get that shortened.
Bella Gandhi: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. 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.
Bella Gandhi:Right? I was like, well, no one has good pictures. I'm just gonna take it in house and make sure everybody gets on the conveyor belt to do this sequentially in the right way. And then after we quote unquote launch you with your profile, your jump started, you've got the right photos, then we're coaching you 3 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 gonna 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.
Bella Gandhi: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 1 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.
Mick Hunt:Okay. So what percentage of your dating, I don't wanna call it setups because 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?
Bella Gandhi:Very few.
Mick Hunt:Okay.
Bella Gandhi: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 my god. I need to introduce you to Lila. You guys are gonna love each other.
Bella Gandhi: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.
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. That's freaking selling you like crazy right there. That's amazing.
Bella Gandhi:Wow. I hope you. I never thought about it that way.
Mick Hunt:Yeah. Because it's real easy. Right? If you have both profiles and it's like, oh, this is a match, but what you're saying, you're taking this one person and making them the best version of themselves in the dating world. Like, that's that's insane.
Bella Gandhi:And they're going into the wild.
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 in this new world, especially with AI.
Mick Hunt:I, as a business owner, I didn't personally send this, but an AI clone of me was sent to my team asking all the information. What? 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 2025 version of Catfish is you're gonna 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 and what what parameters are you putting around your clients to make sure that they're not getting catfish?
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.
Bella Gandhi: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 wanna be taken around into different parts of their house or walk you around. So there's a lot of ways that we help 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 don't even have to give out your real cell phone number to somebody.
Bella Gandhi:It's free. It's easy to use. You can call and you can text from it because today we can be Google able by our cell phones.
Mick Hunt:Absolutely. Bella, there's so many places we could go. Like, we're gonna have to come back and do a part 2 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 listened to to a lot of your talks. And I can say this because my wife is gonna listen to this podcast.
Mick Hunt: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.
Bella Gandhi:Aw, thank you so much. Well, right back at you, my friend. You're inspiring too. Your story is amazing.
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.
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 about dating, interviews with amazing experts that are in dating and relationships, and a lot of client love stories.
Bella Gandhi: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 4 times, people that have never been married, people that are in their seventies. So if you think I don't really know if love exists for me, I'm gonna tell you it does. Go have a listen.
Mick Hunt:Absolutely. And I love Bella's podcast. And here's what I'm also gonna tell you because I have a daughter and 2 sons that are all in their twenties, all have recently graduated college, or one's graduating. The other 2 recently graduated. As a parent, have your kids listen to Bella's podcast because I promise you, number 1, you're gonna help be a part of their lives by being that supportive parent.
Mick Hunt:They're gonna 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. So parents out there, have your kids download and subscribe to Bella's podcast as well. Bella, you're amazing.
Bella Gandhi:Thank you so much for the honor of being on today.
Mick Hunt:I appreciate you. And for all the listeners, remember, your because is your superpower. Go unleash it.
Intro: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. 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.