Episode 86: Dating After Divorce with Bela Gandhi
The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast
Kate Anthony
4.4 • 574 Ratings
🗓️ 9 September 2020
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on the podcast, we're talking about dating after divorce with Bela Gandhi. Bela has been called The Fairy Godmother of Dating by Steve Harvey, Harry Connick Jr. and The Huffington Post — so basically, she's magic.
Bela is the founder of The Smart Dating Academy in Chicago, and has been helping people find lifelong love for over a decade.
When I first got divorced, I could not wait to start dating!! Unfortunately, I wasn't focused on dating for fun and experience. Instead, I was on a quest for my next husband! Needless to say, that did not go very well for me. #stillsingle
When I look back at my dating experience post separation and divorce, I can say without hesitation that it was the biggest lesson in learning who I am in relationships. If you're thinking about what dating after divorce will look like for you or about to start dating again, I encourage you to look at dating as an interesting and introspective process.
And to listen to whatever Bela tells you to do — that's what I'm doing now! #projectfindkateahusband
Show Highlights
- How to know when you're ready to date and why making sure you are as healed as you can be following your divorce is so important. (7:47)
- If you haven't worked on yourself first, you'll run into the same relationship over and over again. (11:59)
- The difference between what happened in your past relationships and what you made up. (16:16)
- What has happened to the dating world because of COVID-19. (20:41)
- What are some of today's rules of engagement for women coming out of marriages? (26:16)
- Some of the red flags of dating. (29:28)
- Dating with attention and awareness. (42:16)
- Smart Dating Academy: How Bela and her team work with clients. (46:09)
Learn More About Bela Gandhi:
Bela Gandhi is a dating/relationship expert, founder of Smart Dating Academy and a weekly media correspondent. She is a relationship expert and has been featured on most national/local media outlets.
After she graduated (with dual degrees in Finance and German from the University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign), Gandhi worked in mergers and acquisitions for Arthur Andersen in Chicago for a year before joining her family's chemical and manufacturing company (CCC) as the, where she divided her time between Chicago and Europe helping to expand the business. When the Gandhi family sold its business to Akzo Nobel, she was asked to remain its leader, and became Akzo Nobel Non-Stick Coating's Global Vice President of Housewares. But even as she quickly climbed the corporate ladder, Gandhi had a feeling that her career would one day be taking a sharp turn in a different direction – because she discovered her love of matchmaking and providing dating advice. She launched her Smart Dating Academy in 2009.
Smart Dating Academy has quickly become one of the nation's top date coaching firms - and teaches busy, successful professionals to jump start their dating lives successfully. Smart Dating Academy is described by its clients "like going to Harvard Business School, but for dating and relationships". SDA's coaches become personal trainers for their clients' love lives. The SDA coaching program is results-oriented and fun - which helps you to clarify who is right for you, stop old dating patterns, and use technology the RIGHT way. You become positive and enthusiastic about dating / relationships again! Its clients receive personalized dating plans, and essential training in how to meet high caliber singles, personal style, conversation, and online success.
Resources & Links:
Bela on Instagram
Bela on Facebook
Bela on Twitter
Visit Bela's website and grab your copy of 7 Clues You're Dating A Narcissist
The Ultimate Divorce Survival Guide
Should I Stay or Should I Go Facebook Group
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Divorce Survival Guide podcast, where we have open and honest conversations about co-parenting, separation, divorce, and the hardest question of all, should you stay or should you go. |
| 0:17.7 | I'm Kate Anthony, your divorce survival guide, and I'm here to help you navigate |
| 0:22.8 | some of the roughest waters you've ever swum in and answer some of your toughest questions. |
| 0:28.5 | I've been to hell and back, and now it's my mission in life to help you get to the other side |
| 0:34.2 | of this process with your sanity and your heart intact. |
| 0:44.3 | Welcome back to another episode of the Divorce Survival Guide podcast. |
| 0:49.4 | How you all doing? |
| 0:51.6 | Oh, good Lord. |
| 0:52.8 | Well, we are coming off of here in L.A. It was Labor Day weekend, |
| 0:59.4 | and it was 118 degrees here. So, and now there are fires raging raging literally everywhere. |
| 1:28.3 | The moon was bright red. The sun has been bright red. It's been like as apocalyptic as it fucking gets. So there's, you know, a little bit of doomsday feeling around here, I got to tell you. It's really been the first time that I've looked around and been like, I think Southern |
| 1:31.4 | California might become uninhabitable sooner than we thought. |
| 1:37.7 | You know, it's always been, the climate change issue has always been sort of somewhat out |
| 1:43.2 | there, but this is, this is insane. |
| 1:45.8 | This is right now. Anyway, so that's what I'm coming off of and then moving into the week, |
| 1:52.4 | feeling a little, ah, that's where I'm at today. And but besides that, I have a great episode for you today. I, this is, I'm bringing to you my |
| 2:06.0 | interview with my, my good friend Bella Gandhi, who runs the Smart Dating Academy. She's basically, |
| 2:15.0 | you know, one of the nation's preeminent dating coaches. And she is the shit. And our work |
| 2:24.7 | aligns so much because, you know, Bella will take people who want to start dating again and be like, |
| 2:32.7 | okay, but you have all these patterns and all of these habits and all of these, you know, your picker is basically broken. And we got to fix that before we can get you out there. And that's, that is exactly the work that I do with my clients, you know, during the divorce process and even during the should I stay or |
| 2:52.7 | should I go process, right? Like, why did you pick this person? Let's look at your picker. |
| 2:58.9 | So while Bella is like on the after side, getting back out into dating and I'm on the sort of |
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