This week’s Woman of Value Podcast guest, Bela Gandhi is the Founder of the Smart Dating Academy, one of the nation’s top date and relationship coaching firms. They provide busy, successful professionals with date coaching, image consulting, professional photography and online dating consulting. Called “The Fairy Godmother of Dating!” by the Huffington Post and Steve Harvey, she is the dating expert on the Steve Harvey Show, Good Morning America, Fox Chicago, and a frequent contributor to ABC, NBC, WCIU, the Today Show, Glamour, Redbook, The Wall Street Journal, and more. Prior to founding the Smart Dating Academy, Bela worked for 12 years as a top global executive for Akzo Nobel, a large multinational corporation. Bela Gandhi has two degrees from The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Finance & German), and is happily married with 2 children.
Bela’s mission is to bring more love into the world by teaching people how to choose partners that will make them happy. Permanently 🙂
The Fairy Godmother of Dating!
I loved this interview with Bela Gandhi. She’s a bundle of high energy, she’s highly intelligent, and most of all, she’s one of the kindest and most humble women I know.
Listen to our interview here, and please leave a comment and let us know what you think.
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Show Notes
2:30 The beginnings. How Bela trained to become a dating coach.
3: 00 What ‘woman of value’ means to Bela.
3:50 What motivated Bela to go from corporate exec to becoming a matchmaker and dating coach? Listen to a story about her first match back in college at age 21!
6:29 What inspired Bela to create a bigger business instead of being a solo-preneur? She shares how she went from dating narcissists to dating and marrying her husband, which became the foundation for her business.
9:40 Fixing your picker is hard, even when you know it’s bad for you. Here’s why…You’ll also hear how to stop dating toxic people, and why Hollywood is bad for your love life.
13:25 How Bela overcame her fear of public speaking and total panic to go on and appear on national media shows on a weekly basis.
20:06 Bela shares how confidence is built. She believes it’s through taking action, even if you feel fear. ‘Just do it!’, and that’s how you’ll learn and grow.
24:40 What’s new in Bela’s world? Check out her new website smartdatingacademy.com with 9 episodes from the Steve Harvey show. She’s also creating a course to walk people through the dating process.
27:45 How Bela has dealt with criticism, which is par for the course if you’re a public figure.
31:11 Bela’s philosophy on rejection in your career and your love life.
34:11 Welcome to the lightning round!
38:00 How Bela became an artist…a successful artist who sold her paintings for a lot of money!
44:39 How Bela’s parents met and married. Surprising story!
54:48 And finally, this is how Bela wants to be remembered…
Connect With Bela
Social Media
IG – @smartdatingacademy
FB – @smartdatingacademy
TW – @BelaGandhiLove
