Lina: Thank you for taking the time to do this interview. I would love to get to know you, so tell us about you. Who is Jacqueline? Where are you from and what did you do before you became a celebrity/millionaire matchmaker?
Jacqueline: I’m the CEO & Founder of IDL Match Club, but I’m known among my clients and online as “The Fairy Matchmaker.” I’m a celebrity matchmaker and love expert with over a decade spent as a working actress in Hollywood. During that time I had my fair share of “LA” relationships and spent many years single and wading in the dating pool.
After acting, I experienced a life changing moment when I lost someone I was in a relationship with and in order to overcome that, I went down a path of self-healing by studying hypnotherapy and focused on NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming). I noticed my own patterns and experiencing the death of someone I loved was a wakeup call to my own blocks around love and relationships. I wanted to understand the reasons people act the way they do in relationships.
That was when I discovered that I have kind of this intuitive ability to help other people decode their own underlying values, which is really at the center of breaking old patterns. This started helping others to find the things they have always dreamed of and I was a Life Coach for a short time. This led to a smooth transition into helping clients to find a loving relationship and I was able to not only help others, but mend my own broken heart. Within two years I was able to attract the love of my life, Ramón!
Lina: How did you get your start? When and why did you decide to turn this into a business?
Jacqueline: After being a bit of a self-indulgent actress working and living in Los Angeles for many years, there came a moment when I just didn’t want to do it anymore. I wanted to do something more fulfilling where I actually helped people. I went on this personal healing journey, eventually studying NLP, hypnotherapy, exploring crystal healing and many other things until I found some success as a life coach. Ultimately, it wasn’t until one of my life coaching clients asked me to coach him with dating that I realized I had found my calling. Within six months he was in a happy relationship, and at the time, I was pregnant. That’s when I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, so I was able to transition into matchmaking full time.
Lina: How often does a match happen and how does it make you feel when it does?
Jacqueline: Many people match and can have great dates, but when a match turns into a relationship, it’s an amazing feeling! I think ultimately it comes down to when an individual person or two individual people are truly ready for love, it’s like a switch goes on and boom they “find” it. Sometimes people meet at my events and other times it’s through me, but when it does happen it’s a pretty incredible feeling and it’s amazing to see.
Lina: What is the difference between your business and a dating app?
Jacqueline: The main difference between my business and a typical dating app is we screen everyone. There are so many instances with dating apps where you meet someone and they end up looking nothing like their pictures, or pretending to be someone more successful or just something they are not. It’s our work to make sure that doesn’t happen. More importantly we filter to make sure people are reliable and will actually show up to a date. It seems like “ghosting” is a huge problem with apps, so if you’re working with a Matchmaker, we can be a buffer for something that’s usually awkward. We know if someone gets back with an ex or didn’t feel chemistry, or started seeing someone new and became exclusive and we communicate that.
Lina: It has been said that NOW is the worst time to date. Do you agree and why? Have you noticed a change in the dating world since you began your journey as a matchmaker?
Jacqueline: I disagree 100%! Now is actually a great time to find your match! I believe Covid showed a lot of people that being single can create a deep sense of loneliness and so many people, who maybe were too busy or too jaded began to see what’s so great about finding love, companionship and a real relationship. I’ve noticed that a lot of clients who were these “serial daters” began to get into more meaningful relationships. I think a lot more people are truly open to finding a real relationship during this time. People are willing to be a little more vulnerable because the alternative can be worse.
Lina: How do you choose your candidates and what does your ideal client look for?
Jacqueline: We work with some very high profile and successful clients and verifying that is part of our screening, but more importantly I take on clients that genuinely want to find love and are good people. In the end, this career is really about my desire to help people find what I’ve been able to find for myself. Ideally I help my clients find a partner who has similar values. Looks and money can be great and are important to a lot of people, but those things don’t sustain a healthy long-term relationship. So, in order to have the best chances of success, I do a deep dive using my training to understand what each client truly needs in a partner.
Lina: What type of advice do you give a client who’s looking for love? Do you find the need to coach the man or the woman more throughout the process?
Jacqueline: I find myself continuously saying, “love never comes in the package you think it will.” A lot of people keep dating the same “type” of person over and over and over again and it rarely, if ever works. So, I usually advise people to try dating people they normally wouldn’t and this can have a wide range of responses. If people are open to coaching, it’s definitely helpful and those clients tend to find happiness in a relationship.
Lina: Does social media affect or heighten your business? What is your take on social media in regards to relationships in general?
Jacqueline: Social media definitely helps my business. I meet a lot of great people from Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. Of course, most women on social media (including myself sometimes), use filters. And, that’s not helpful. A lot of time men expect the women they date to look like a perfect photoshopped picture and truthfully no one looks like that, not even the Instagram models. Also, I think a lot of people try to reach out to each other on social media – sliding into the DM’s - and more often than not it’s a total turnoff. Personally, for me, I prefer if the matches don’t see each other’s Instagram because they are bound to find something they don’t like about them in real life. This can also lead to missing the match of their dreams, because they maybe see a particularly bad picture or poorly managed account they didn’t like. So, I totally discourage it.
Lina: What advice do you have for single women in their 30s looking for marriage?
Jacqueline: My advice would be to throw all your timelines out. Thinking you have to be married by a certain age or pregnant by another age is a big waste of time. If it happens great, but if it doesn’t happen, that’s okay too. Pressure doesn’t help. When I finally threw my timelines out I found myself married with kids and it all happened so fast! Also, more importantly don’t be so picky. Love is all about lessons in personal growth and it’s deeply connected with self-love and esteem, so you may just fall in love with someone you would have never expected to fall in love with if you’re open.
Lina: What is the number one mistake that people make in dating? What advice do you have for anyone looking for love and a serious relationship?
Jacqueline: I think the number one mistake people make in dating is waiting to call or text someone back and maybe deciding to play mind games during this whole process. If you like someone, get right back to them! If you are your authentic self, you will be so much more successful in the long run. The days of the pickup artist are dead, so sweet talking and empty promises are worthless in the search for love. People love real authentic honest people and we need more of them.