Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Dr Gary Wohlman, PhD and Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- Sep 12
- 18 min read
📍 📍 Welcome back to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections. I'm your host, Michael Forman, and today's episode is all about stepping outta the background and into the spotlight of your business and your life. My guest is a powerhouse in helping entrepreneurs break free from invisible patterns that keep them playing small.
He teaches how to get into the zone that focus, fearless, fearless energy where clarity flows, confidence rises, and opportunities multiply. So here's what makes his perspective so valuable. He doesn't just talk about mindset. He shows how it directly fuels profitable networking. Because you're fully present, fully assigned, and fully you the right people.
Can't imagine, I'm sorry, the right people can't help but be drawn to your energy. So if you've been holding back, waiting to be noticed or playing it safe in the rooms you enter, this is your moment. Let's talk about what really means. To your own story, activate your zone and build bold, authentic connections that move your business forward.
I hope I put all that correctly. I'm sorry if I didn't. Amazing. Okay, so I would like to introduce today Dr. Gary Wallman, PhD. He has quite an extensive background, which I'm going to let him do himself. Gary, welcome to the podcast. Sounds like you're inviting me to be up at bat, up on stage. That's great.
Close love. That's beautiful. Welcome everyone who's listening or watching or both or any combination I have. Yes. A varied, adventurous background Born where you also grew up in New York and I've been moving west my whole life. California, Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, Bali Thailand. And now I'm living on the east coast of Australia.
I live in a permaculture community and I have a very successful and very unusual, you can see already way of, if I put it in one word, it would be multisensor. Multisensor Rising. Everything has been the calling card for me to have fantastic networking opportunities. I'll share a few with you live moments as well as a, the presentation doctor and speaker's mentor, which I am coaching, helping people who have a message to share their voice and wisdom with the world.
In a somatic way. My background at Horace Mann private school, actually in New York City. I graduated there K LA and along with honors had, there's one student in each class that's given an award for the best combination of academics and athletics. I was a champion springboard diver and track star and gymnast.
So I got that award as I graduated, and you know what? That same focus throughout my life. The marrying of the body and the mind has been the cornerstone of my success and it's taken me, I. First when I didn't get into medical school after going to Johns Hopkins to move to San Francisco and just discover all kinds of body therapies, psychodrama, all kinds of Gestalt, Biogen, I got into deep personal development, develop my own system, which.
Is now called the Wman method for the whole person, which is also government endorsed here in Australia. After I moved here 40 years after developing a method of stretching the muscles in the body while speaking in rhyme and on the exhalations, just like Dr. Seuss, that propel people on this instant journey.
Of their self-talk and immediately shifted their relationship with their body, their communication. Yes. We'll be talking about that. Their relationships as well as their creativity and their contribution. So I've developed tools over, I'm now 73, at least 60 years, I'm sure longer that are all about freeing the physical.
Emotional and creative stored energy in a person's body. My networking and communication is based on body wisdom, and I'll share some specific examples with you over the years. Some great stories, just in a few words from each time. That's one of these happen that is so easy to pass on, and what a thrill to you who are.
Listening and watching today. If you'd like to know any more about my background, that's a short version right there. Okay. Let's move into the questions and we'll get into it a little bit more. Yeah. You talk about getting into the zone to grow your business. Yeah. How does being in the state that, how does being in that state impact the way that we network and connect with others?
I'll give you a good example from something that just happened in the last two hours. It's getting cold here in Australia, and even though I went swimming at the dam today, which I do on our 800 acres of of. Wild forest here. I have a wood-fired sauna, and I took a wood-fired sauna tonight by myself and got into the zone.
I was meditating, I was chanting, I was singing, I was praying, I was breathing. I was stoking the fire the whole time, and I just came out about an hour ago. My fingers are still a little cool yet, I tell you, by nurturing, empowering. And inspiring myself first throughout the day. This is the secret sauce to doing what I'm doing with you.
I am reaching who knows how many, it doesn't matter people around the world from being in the zone, from being in the zone. It's like being on the dance floor with someone, being on the dance floor with yourself. And you have, every move is in synchrony with yourself, your intentions, your intonations and whoever you're connecting with.
So I practice nurturing, empowering, and inspiring myself with every thought, word and action. And that metaphysical practice, that inner practice fills my day. And you can see I'm lit up and it's a result. Of practicing. I'll give you another example. Just before this session, after coming out of the sauna, I was rehearsing some affirmations.
I. And I teach this, but this is not affirmations by themselves. They're boring. It's, dull, boring, verbal evaporation, aberrations of affirmations. It's just words or on paper. So what I do is I record a whole script just of the key affirmations. I put it on a Word document in my computer in multicolored and very attractive.
Graphics that match the tonality of those affirmations. I have a candle going, this little light in the background here, that is a multisensory experience. So I'm programming the affirmations into my psyche before I speak with you, and that is how, with all those practices I just shared with you. I get into the zone, I can see you looking for your next question, so I'll pause.
That's all right. I'm, listen, I'm always looking around for the questions and I'm always in intently listening to what you have to say because it is so very interesting. Yeah. Thank you. Many entrepreneurs hold back without realizing it. What patterns do you see most often and how do they sabotage meaningful networking?
Yeah I can own that rather than point the finger. I've been there, I've been there. I've overdone that I grew up with a very strong parents and helped me be very successful as I turned out to be. And at the same time, I know. My mom had great expectations of me. I did become her super achiever, but I had a great sense of loathing inside that we all do a self-talk that told myself I'm not enough.
It was my core wound. It wasn't true, but I couldn't do enough a pluses or, to please her. And so I developed a belief that Ahmad avma good enough, turning it around. The self-talk is absolutely essential to be able to free one's ability. To be all that they can be in this life. So when I work with people, I see myself as an archeologist of the soul.
This is the physical stored tension on the surface layer. The physical tension has to be released, number one. Number two, the emotional self-talk. I'm not good enough. I'm afraid of this. Whatever it could be, make up your own version. We all have our own flavor then is released at the second level, the emotional holding stored energy patterns.
And only then. Physical, emotional can. The creative layers of full self-expression being absolutely magnificent in one's achievements, in one's business and in relationships emerge. But it has to take place by first removing. As Michelangelo said, I saw the angel already in that marble and I chiseled everything else away.
So what was left was the angel. So this is the secret. Find out, identify where you're wounded. We're all wounded until you get to that layer. It's just all cotton candy and bubble gum and, cotton floss and champagne and it's not true. Once you can come to an event where you felt held back and see the decision you made around it, one thing I recommend you do an exercise I've developed that, I often do this online with people.
Take that pain. That false persona, that belief that you're not on up and do something like this. This is what I do. I send this program, this pattern, this pain, what I've taken in from my ancestors and others that I felt responsible for, and I send it back to the source with that strength, that full body wisdom, verbal, vocal, visual, simultaneously.
I send it. Back to where it came and then the self-talk. My new self-talk is I am creative, I am playful, I am transformational. I teach this, but we have to come to identify the negative, turn it through a releasing process, whatever works for you, and to my new mission statement, my new self-talk is and then multisensor it and that it becomes you very quickly.
Good. Very good. I'm listening to this and I can't wait to listen to this podcast after we're all done because I want to really go over everything that you had just said. Absolutely. But moving on you help people step into the center stage of their life. How can networking serve as a stage, not just a strategy?
That was well worded question. I'm now reviewing in my psyche all the different experiences that I have had in networking in my life. And there's both the physical networking events online and in the physical that occur when your body is somewhere in your interacting with humans. There's all the non networking events where you feel a resonant.
With someone in the arena, in the audience, whether or not you're on stage or an event. I keep thinking about this particular moment, so I'm gonna share it. The example I was at, I believe it was a Werner Airhart EST or Landmark Forum, an event that had hundreds of thousands of people in this one assembly, in this one audience auditorium, and I kept seeing.
A woman over there. Yeah. Like 30, 40 people away. Every time I turned, she seemed to turn. Every time I looked at her, I dunno what it was that was magnetizing me to her presence, her energy, her vibration, her signature, her clo, whatever it was. I do this, I've got married and things like this from following my intuition.
So I'm gonna tell you how I follow my intuition in this instance. So I walk up to this person and I told her, I. To be honest with you I saw you from across the room. I don't know who you are or you know what we have to speak about, but I felt drawn to you and matter of fact, then I'd bring in the physical.
Every time I look towards you, you seem to turn towards me. Now I'm either making that up or let's find out. My name is, I'm a presentation coach, body therapist, and she wound up being one of my best clients who's a lawyer and for three or 4, 5, 6. 10 months. She was, a fantastic client of mine and it was a great experience trusting intuition and following through re's great rewards.
And that's one of my networking experiences. The principle is feel the energy, feel where you're drawn. Notice if you're uplifted by that experience of who you're looking at. Forget the agenda. Forget the lines. Forget what to say. Be honest. I'll give you another example. Okay. This is not networking. This is how I met one of the wives that I was married to.
I'm now very happy with myself, all oneness, I'll alone this new relationship with that. So I was driving my bicycle, my, my push bike here in Australia. I was, where was I? I was north of Brisbane living there at the time. I was riding my bicycle on this park near the ocean. And a woman smiles at me. She has two dogs.
She's walking two dogs. She gives me this huge smile. I keep thinking about it. I'm riding my bicycle. It's maybe 30, 40 seconds now. Gary, turn around. You don't know what the, you might have missed seizes the moment. Follow your intuition and tell the truth. So I went back, I stopped in front of her and I said, excuse me, you gave me the most beautiful smile.
I was being honest. Back there, and it just really touched me. I don't know who you are yet. I wanna meet you. We were married 16 weeks later. So following your intuition is a physical experience where the energy gets uplifted when you have a particular thought, whether it's in a networking meeting or out in a park.
Or in a large audience. You have another question? I can feel it. What I'm gathering is you have to be your authentic self authenticity. Yeah. Speaks volumes. It does. I used to, when I was a teenager and I was growing up in White Plains, New York, I went to a private high school that was all boys, and I felt awkward with girls.
Even though I wound up having many relationships and four marriages, et cetera, but that's another story. So I remember, and I haven't thought about this in probably 40, 50, 60 years, that when I was on the phone I wrote down jokes to girls that I was interested and I read the jokes on the phone, oh my God, it's been a long ways now I trust leap.
And the net will appear. I trust the unknown. I like the unknown. There's a certain feeling of security that people false security have when they want to know what to say, when before they say it. When I do my presentation coaching with people, but I wanna get the structure first before presenting it. No, just tell me about it.
The structural form itself. Al, one of my great mentors, beautiful artists, beautiful, playful, joyful, biblical. He had tremendous wisdom in his painting. Someone asked him once, how do you do that? How do you make these amazing shapes that are so accurate? And he said this, I don't focus on the shapes.
I focus on the feelings, the colors, and the colors become the shapes, and the shapes become. The forms and the forms become the, what you're seeing in the imagery. So starting with the feeling and seeing what sound movement, word wisdom comes from that. This is my way through life. It's very different. I recognize that.
Alright. That's all right. Let me go on. So what's the difference between showing up in a room and truly being present, and how can that shift transform a business conversation? I need to know you're making that as a distinction. 'cause to me that could be the same thing. So please explain that in more detail so I can make a distinction.
Okay. So usually when somebody shows up in a room, they're, they. They're really not present because you have to be, you have to be confident. You have to know where you are. You have to know what you're doing, and you have to be present in a room and, just as another factor I'm gonna bring into this was, I go, when I do a a networking event or something else, I go in with a servant's heart.
I go in and I see what can I do for this person? Instead of saying, oh look, I have this to sell that to sell. I can do this for you, that for you. Listen, what can I do to make you more successful? Okay, I got it. Okay. That answers it. That's it. That answers the question, and now I'll answer my own version of you asking me that question.
The difference between showing up and being fully present. Now I understand the question. Yeah. The difference between showing up, which to me in the way you describe it, is not showing up as being present, but showing up with all of the stress of do I have my shirt buttoned and is my hair looking good?
Performing, so to speak, or what do I wanna get outta this? To, what can I give to this? So here's how I do this. This is how I address it. One, I do what I've already told you I do, which is I feel where my body energy, eye contact is drawn and I move towards that no matter what it is. However, if I had the point of view or the thought inside of.
How can I be of service? Just like what you said to the situation. I don't think so much is about the person as what does this moment need? 'cause the moment needs something with that person, their emergency, they fell down, their wife is this, or I broke my, it, it's colored by that what just happened before.
So when I look at it, I'm not just looking at the person, looking at all that the moment is calling for to be in service. I recall recently someone who I highly respect gave me, gave on his podcast, on his international show, a description of why are we here on this earth? And he gave this beautiful one sentence description.
He said, we are here to be in service to the creator, in service to creation. That's it. And I go by that. And that serves me really well when I'm in a networking meeting or a session. I'll tell you something that works for me online. This is a bit different, but I, it's a strategy, okay, singer. It's not always following my feelings.
I have a strategy that works as well, and this is what I do. So let's say we're on an online networking session, okay? And people are talking to each other in the chat and people are introducing each other for. 30 seconds to a minute, and sometimes a bit longer depending on how small the group is. This is what I do with almost everyone.
I find where the yes is, I find where I feel a sincere, deep connection on some level with this person. I don't know what it's gonna be later, and I write them and I say these exact words. I'm remembering what I put in the chat. Really loved your share their name, particularly what you said about and whatever it was that connected me with them.
I'd love to have a video chat and explore mutual support. Here's my website. As the presentation doctor and speaker's mentor, I'd love to assist you. Bring your message, your voice, and your wisdom out to the world. Here's a link to have a. A complimentary video chat. Let's see what we can do for each other.
So that's what I do in an in networking meetings. I just exactly what I just did. It is what I do. And a lot of people like that. And they're genuine connections. They're not false. They're not. 'cause I found out what it is that really touched me. Sometimes I don't even remember. And I say, love what you shared.
Let's have a video chat. So I'm being honest here. It's not me always being so astute. Sometimes I forget. But I do honor. That I wanna make connection and that helps tremendously in, in networking online. Get some more questions for me. Sure. How can someone, sure. How can someone create an environment?
Internally and externally that keeps them in the zone when networking or building relationships. I've described that already. I do it through physical practices. I live near a waterfall on a dam. I do yoga, I do stretching. Lately, just before this call today, I did something that I absolutely loved. I told you I love to multisensor affirmations when I'm working with people.
So I was sitting here with the candle, with the affirmations and multiple colors and fonts. I was here, I. With the video from voice memos on my Mac, on my iPhone that I was listening to while reading the words, and I say the words both once out loud and then I sing them the second time. So they multisensor in my psyche and they're immediately embedded in my cellular memory.
I do this as a practice to get myself into zone. It's funny, above my head right here, you can't see it. 'cause I'm not gonna turn. Maybe I can the yeah, if I go to the ceiling, look at those words. Can you see that? Can you read it? I can't read that. It says get into the zone. It's above my head. It's always above my head. So to me it's a moment to moment practice. Joyful discipline. Okay, good. We're getting to the end, but a lot of people hide behind their brand or their pitch. What's the first step towards showing up as your full self in a disin business relationship?
Remove the script, go through the skid. Be willing to explore the unknown. Watch the mystery. When you look at it this way boats are not meant to be stuck in the harbor. They're meant to be out into the open sea. They're at least charting a course somewhere from one place to another. So if you hold on to what's familiar.
You're, again, it's just gonna have dull, monotonous, plain vanilla, ordinary responses. However, if you challenge yourself to go, I trust being in the unknown. I trust whatever shows up in my interaction with this other human that I can find the yes I can find. What delights me, inspires me, nurtures me, empowers me, and there is a solid connection between one human and another.
From that, it may not go anywhere. Yet, I'll tell you, it's more likely to than focusing on a script. If you have a script or something that you say, or brand, it can be even when I teach people about public speaking, the PowerPoint can be a hiding place 'cause you're reading it rather than connecting with the human in front of you.
Also using gestures to make pictures of what you're saying will take you out of your being a talking head, so you're not stuck in your brand or who you think you have to identify with because you think that's what people want. They want your humanity, your tenderness. You're sharing your caring as strength, your vulnerability as strength, and this is what we're here all to learn and practice.
Outstanding. Outstanding. Okay. Let's bring this podcast full circle. Beautiful. And looking ahead, what's one powerful mindset or practice you believe every entrepreneur should adopt to create more meaningful, profitable connections?
The first word that came in my mind when my energy lifted up was the following affirmation. To say this to yourself, to write it down, to sing it, to dance it, to paint it. Simple mess, simple message. It's an affirmation, and the words are,
it's safe and easy for me. To share my voice message and wisdom with you and a shorter version is probably even better. I love sharing my voice message and wisdom with you, and an ending is often called for. I love sharing my message and wisdom with you and being fully received. So we have a lovely connection wherever it goes.
So any variation of that, it's basically a short, shortest, simplest, strongest, specific statement. I call that the five s principle affirmation that you can speak, write down, say it, sing it, and in a variety of multisensory ways, watch the magic, how quickly that will be manifest. So that's my.
Greatest message to you is create an affirmation that you don't just write that you live it every single moment, this moment, all the time in the world. Gary, that's great. It's wonderful advice. Things to live by, things to know. It's just. Everything you're saying just I can resonate with. So I want to thank you on every level.
But let's say if somebody wanted to get hold of you Yeah. Whether, I know you're in Australia, I know you're on a mountain, but if they want to get hold of you, what's the best way for somebody to get hold of you? Sure, and I'll give you some links that you can put in the notes for this too. I'll send that to you afterwards.
But for now, the very easy thing for you to remember, you who are listening, you, who are watching you, who have a pen nearby. Yes. Get a pen out. That's right. Yeah. Oh, so in that drawer? Yeah. Where you put it last. That's it. Okay. So here it is. Pause. You can reach me. Easiest.
By putting in the link or writing it down now so you can remember it. My presentation doc.com spelled out my presentation doc.com. That has everything. It has links, videos, keynote presentations, inspirational videos. Blogs, all kinds of ways that we can connect and there's this a way you can contact me.
Happy to give you a 20 minute complimentary video chat to see how I can be of any support so you build your business effective, efficient, networking, and fulfill your life purpose. That's what I'm here for. Gary, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I hope my listeners got. Everything that, that you wanted out of it.
And if not, they can always re-listen to it. But thank you again for coming on the podcast. A pleasure, true pleasure there. Michael. Thank you for, I'm really honored to be having you ask me those questions to have you be as open as you are to me. Multisensor a topic that could be just a talking head download.
So I'm grateful for the opportunity, make a difference.
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Michael is a business networking expert specializing in enhancing professionals' networking and communication skills to drive profitability. As a leading authority in this field, he is highly sought after for his dynamic presentations and workshops. His extensive experience has consistently led to significant improvements in corporate profitability by empowering individuals and organizations to connect more effectively and efficiently.
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