Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Dr Reggie Wright and Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- Apr 1
- 18 min read
📍 I've got a special guest. As everybody knows, I am a graduate of the Speaker Lab and I have Dr.
Reggie Wright. He likes to be called Reggie with his vast background, but he was integral in. Getting me started in my speaking career. So I would like to first, let me just give you a little bit about his background. Dr. Reggie Wright, Jr. is a former professional basketball player and highly sought after motivational speaker.
educator and coach. He's been featured on CNN for his work on empowering educators and students to overcome adversity and excel in both academic and personal development. So I'd like to bring on Reggie and if you just tell us a bit more about your background, that'd be great. But hey Reggie, what's going on?
Hey, Mike, listen, thank you for having me. First and foremost, man. Happy to be on your show. I feel honored. I feel like I've made it like I arrived. So thank you. I appreciate it. Yep. I'll get a little bit of background as you asked me to to go into. You pretty much summarized it.
I'm from Trenton, New Jersey. So that's where I'm originally born and raised in the city of Trenton, New Jersey. It's a small area. It's about seven square miles by 85, 000 people. Okay. Cool. And I was raised by my grandmother, so my grandmother migrated up north from Mississippi back in 1960. And my mother got pregnant with me at the age of 19 and gave birth to me at 20.
And then my grandmother stepped in and she raised me all the way throughout, high school and college. That's where I was born and raised. That's my background in terms of my adolescent years and childhood years. And then I went to college and I got an undergrad in computer science.
I went overseas and played professional basketball for a number of years, like you mentioned. Then I graduated and I came back home and pursued a master's degree. So I have a master's in arts and religion. And then I actually went back to school and got my doctorate in educational leadership and here I am now today as a paid professional speaker and coach also have my own coaching program as well right now.
That's great. You can listen, you are, it's true that you. Came from almost nothing and I understand you, you grew up, you actually became a police officer before you became a professional speaker. So you really have quite the background. But so I won't go into everything. I will go into everything.
But okay. So how did your academic background influence your approach to networking in the education sector? Yeah I learned this, I'll summarize it this way Dr. King has an article called the purpose of education, and when he summarized that article, the purpose of education, he said it comes down to two components, it's intelligence plus character.
So one of the things I believe is that if I'm going to be successful as a paid professional speaker, But also successful as a speaker coach that I need to network with the right group of people who exemplify intelligence and a high level of character, right? Because I think Grant actually said it, said who you are is more important than what you do, right?
So you want to be around some people that their morals and ethics and values align with your morals, ethics and values. Because as we say, in a public figure space, all money is not good money. So we want to profit, right? We want to generate revenue, but we want to make sure that we're aligned with people that have a high value of character and integrity is one of the greatest assets.
Great. And I firmly believe that as well. Can you share a story about a pivotal connection that significantly impacted your career in education? Yeah, absolutely. There's a few as a speaker or just in terms of my impact I've had with students or educators themselves.
Give me your student impact. Yeah, 100%. And so one of the stories I talk about when I come in and do my keynote presentations at schools, a lot of convocations, they have me come in and do or professional development workshops. I always talk about there was a particular student that seemed to be disengaged, right?
Didn't seem to have any heart. Passion, desire for school, right? We call that student apathy, right? So I was made aware that this student wasn't really going to be disruptive, wasn't really going to interrupt my class, but he just wasn't going to do anything. He wasn't going to raise his hand, he wasn't going to do his homework, he wasn't going to participate.
And I understood that. So one of the things I try to do, Mike, is I try to affirm the students when I go into the class on a day to day basis. I always try to find something to say to let them know that they have worth and value, that they're intelligent, they're gifted, and that they can and they will be successful in life, and that an education is one of the greatest tools that can help them maximize their potential.
And that's what I did with this student. I came in day after day, week after week, and I would just affirm him, and he never really responded. But then it was one particular day when I went in. After Halloween, and when I went in this one particular day after Halloween, I pretty much just asked the students, Hey, who would like to volunteer and share with me, you know what you were for Halloween?
What was your Halloween costume? And as you can imagine, kids like, Ooh, call me. And, as I panned and scanned the room to see who I was going to choose on initially, believe it or not, this student that had never raised his hand, never did his homework, was always disengaged, head was always disengaged.
Pointed down towards the floor, his head was down, but his hand actually went up. And when his hand went up, I couldn't believe it. I was shocked. He had never said a word. So I had to call him. So I, I looked over and I said, go ahead. What were you for Halloween? And he took a pause.
His head never came up. His head remained down the entire time. But while his head was down, he said this, He said, Mr. Wright, I was you and that, it like, it broke me, like I was standing there and tears were coming down my face because I'm like, I'm thinking, I'm confused, but it was so powerful.
I'm like, So now I asked him like, Zy, why would you be me for Halloween? And he said, literally Mike, he said, because you had the biggest impact in my life. And I said how have I had the biggest impact in your life? I've only been in here in the last, seven or eight weeks. He said, literally, a fifth grader said, he said, you shifted my perspective.
So yeah so think about think about as professionals, as adults, even as hard to ship someone's perspective, if you can ship someone's perspective, you can change their attitude. And if you change the attitude, you can change the outcome. Absolutely. That's fantastic. That's a great story.
What unique networking strategies have you found most effective in the academic and speaking worlds? Yeah, so in the speaking world, so you said academic and speaking, I started speaking space. So speaking, I would say one of the things that I've done is make sure that I've been intentional.
About getting to into certain circles with other speakers that align with my value system, right? So we share a similar mindset passion for what we do Who we are our families, you know how we carry conduct ourselves, excuse me And I'm very intentional about spending time with them in person. So not just virtually But actually getting together in person.
As I'm down in the Atlanta based area myself. And one of the reasons why, I make that commute and go back and forth is because I really value the relationships with other speakers that I'm in community with. And I believe that's helped me tremendously because, they say you are who you spend time with, right?
They say your friends are a reflection of who you are and who you want to become. If my friends are a reflection of who I am and who I want to become, I need to make sure that I'm spending time with the right group of people as a professional speaker. Academically, I just try to make sure I go to the conferences that are gonna have educators.
in the building that I know could benefit off of my message, my heart, my passion for the work that I do. And more importantly, it's service based. I want to know how I can serve them, right? Because that's what's the most important thing to me. How can I help them help these students? Because that's where my heart really lies.
Okay. And on that same level on the same line how does networking play a role in fostering the character development among students. Yeah, I think it's everything, right? Networking in terms of fostering, the environment for character development because I feel like for students and the educators themselves, right?
Peer influence, right? As my pastor, Dr. Darius Daniels said, whoever has your ear has your heart. So I want to make sure that the students are spending time with other students that can influence them in the right direction. And the same thing to educators. Like teacher burnout is real.
And I speak to that all the time. I want to make sure that teachers are spending time with other educators that can motivate them, can influence them in a positive way to help them reignite their passion for why they do what they do. Because it's necessary, right? We all face opposition adversity now.
It's a matter of are you around the right people that can help you get to the other side of it because we're all going to experience it. But we need a community of people around us that can help us overcome it. Absolutely. My daughter in law is a teacher and she is very close to burning out almost every day.
So I know. Okay. So in what ways can networking contribute to building resilience? In aspiring speakers inspiring educators. Yeah. Great question. I think again, when you're in community with people that are resilient, I think it helps you understand and see what it looks like, because listen, we all are either gone through a storm.
We're in a storm, right? Or we just got out of a storm, right? So if you're in community with people, they're in the same situation. If you're walking with another educator in academia and you see this, listen, they just went through this. They didn't give up. They were resilient. Then you too can be resilient.
Like I'll I shared a story and it's, it's it's hard for me to talk about it, but when I was young, my grandmother. Was in a relationship with my biological grandfather and he was physically abusive to her, right? And I remember one day I was eating breakfast at the table and I was young, I was in elementary school And I remember that my grandfather got upset with my grandmother and he struck her in the face, right?
He struck her in the face and when he struck her in the face, Mike, her tooth came out Her tooth came out and it slid under the radiator in the kitchen. I'll never forget this and she was crying I'm sure you can imagine emotions that she felt she definitely didn't deserve to be struck, to be hit, no matter how upset he was.
But I remember this, Mike. I remember my grandmother going upstairs. And surely I thought to myself, she's gonna go upstairs and she's not gonna come back down. She went upstairs. And she gathered herself and composed herself, and she got dressed and she came back downstairs.
And she went to that school to actually teach those children. And it was because of her level of commitment and resiliency. That was amazing to me. That's amazing. It really is. And no, first of all, no child should have to go through that watching their parents, grandparents or whatever, because there's no reason in the world why one should strike the other.
But it must have had such an effect on you being that you were so young and that you had so much respect for your grandmother. Yeah. Okay. How have you leveraged your network to promote academic success in your programs? Yeah. How have I leveraged my network? Yes. One of the things I do is so obviously I have a coaching program now, so obviously that gives me an opportunity to network with speakers that come through my program that are aspiring speakers.
And one of the things that we try to do is we try to often, go into different schools or after school programs, different, nonprofits. And we really try to share our message collectively at times, right? As a network of individuals. Everybody has their own unique story, right?
Mike, your story is your story. My story is my story. You're one of one. I don't have the same story that you have, but if we can collaborate and then we can go into schools together and share our stories, then think about the power of that. These students, you can have four or 500 students. They don't just get to see me.
They get to see me. They get to see you plus our colleagues. So networking is powerful because it really gives students an opportunity to be exposed. To not just one person, but a multitude of people. Yeah I, listen, you know me and what I speak about and how important I feel that networking is, because everybody, if you walk into a room or if you're meeting somebody one on one, you're picking up a vibe.
from the person or a vibe from the room. And it's so very important. I've walked into rooms and I've had such a bad vibe. I walked out, because I don't want to get involved with something distasteful to be nice about it. But it's so very important. How do you measure, how do you measure the impact that you've had?
With the students, with the educational students. Yeah I think the way that I measure the impact with students is simply this. Students are real, Mike. Like they, they are real. You're gonna know if you have an impact in their lives or not immediately right thereafter for the most part.
They're gonna come up to you afterwards and ask questions. They want to interact with you, engage with you, and if they don't, then they'll probably, they'll just leave, right? So I think the two things that I get is feedback right away after I'm done speaking. And then believe it or not, there's a lot of students that will, they may not, they may be a little shy.
That's the best way to put it. A little shy, a little timid, and they don't want to say anything to me afterwards. But then on social media, they'll reach out to me and DM me and say, thank you so much. That was empowerful. That impacted me, I admire you for what you do. You're a role model. You name it, those types of things.
Have you heard from that student when he had his head down and just raised his hand and wanted to be about you? And yeah. I went back and checked on him, a few years after and yeah, he's doing extremely well. He's doing extremely well. Yeah, he's in a he's in high school now. Good.
It just shows what kind of an impact you can have. This is nowhere close to the success that you've had with him. But when I coached baseball for about 16 years and the interaction that I had with the team. Children because I had them from ages five through 16 and I saw an impact that I had in school, out of school, just about the way that they go on with their daily lives and I've had a few of them come back up to me afterwards and thank me and so on and so forth.
So it's that it has a really good feeling. When you change their life. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So how about technology? How has technology changed networking in education and how did you adapt to it? How has technology changed networking and education? One of the things is the zoom call, right?
Zoom platform, Microsoft things, Google meets, it just gives you an opportunity to connect with people. It truly does. It gives you the opportunity to connect with people that don't live close to you geographically, where you still can build relationships with them, and you can understand how you can best serve them and their community, even their students and do it from afar.
I'll give you a quick example. There's a, there's an educator in Connecticut that went and did a convocation there last year in 2024. And, it was positive feedback. They seemed to really appreciate me coming in and sharing my story and pouring into them. But they want me to like, at different times, just to like record something virtually and send it to the students just to like really to build rapport with them and let them know to affirm that, Hey, you can become successful in life and education is a tool that you're really going to need to rely on to be successful.
So that's what I do periodically. I'll send them a zoom. Recording, just encouraging them, right? Like literally a two to three minute video. I wouldn't be able to do that without technology. True. , I'm not in Connecticut. I'm not able to be there. But by technology, by me being able to use technology, I'm able to not just connect and build with those students. But that educators also put me in contact with other schools in Connecticut, where I virtually can impact those scholars and be impactful with those educators as well.
So technology has served me well, it really has. Good. Technology is what brought us together. I'm all for it. That's what are the biggest challenges in networking within the education sector? And how did you overcome it? What are the biggest challenge? Yeah, what are the biggest challenges in networking and education?
I would say really just as a professional speaker in the educational space, the biggest challenge is there are schools that have challenges, obstacles, pain points that need to be addressed. I have solutions to those problems, but they don't know who I am. So that's where marketing comes in place. So it's ability for me to figure out how do I market myself using technology, right? To market myself to them. And then put get myself in certain rooms and spaces where I can network with them, right? Because people are only going to give you an opportunity to typically share your message if they know you like you and trust you Absolutely.
Absolutely. I yep. I profess that all the time I, I say that they have to know you, like you and trust you, then they'll do business with you. But, here's how I break it down. If they know you, look, everybody knows you. You're a nice guy, you're a good looking guy. Hey, everybody knows you.
Like you, that really narrows down it just a little bit. Because you're not going to everybody's not going to like you. But trust you, that's a major factor. That's a major, that's crucial. And so they know you and like you, but they trust you. And once you gain their trust, the world opens up to you.
100%. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Give me your top piece of advice for listeners to build profitable connections in education. I'll give you some top ways to build some profitable connections in education. All right. All so I'll say it this way. So the first thing I would say is this. You yourself have to become a person of value.
Number one. So how does the person, the question has been, Dr. Wright, how do I become a person of value? You need to read and be obsessed with mastering whatever the content is that you want to produce to that particular market. So if you're talking about a posture syndrome, let's just say that for example, you need to be an expert on In regards to imposter syndrome, you need to master the content so that when you speak about imposter syndrome, whoever you're speaking to, they know that you're an expert because they know you know what you're talking about.
All right. So if you want to network and build, you need to be in these rooms and spaces, but you need to know what you're talking about. So you need to master. In terms of your subject matter expertise, that's number one. Number two, you need to be willing to get out and go to different places where you can actually network with people so they can get to know you.
So like we just talked about, you have to be, you gotta go to conferences, local conferences. I'm not saying you gotta, travel and fly places and spend a bunch of money, but most States have some type of educational conference that you can go to and you can attend is fairly reasonable where you can get in these rooms and, mix and mingle with people.
So I would say that's number two. And then the third thing I would say is, you gotta have confidence in your own ability. You gotta have the confidence and the courage to be resilient. And know like you just said, not everyone's gonna like you, but giving up's not an option, right? So you have to be resilient.
Because I think one of the things, even with myself right now, people reach out to me on a day to day basis, Mike, honestly. There's someone always reaching out to me on LinkedIn, Instagram, for some type of advice. Cause they see what I'm doing right now, but I'm like, you're looking at where I'm currently at.
Look at where I started. Yeah, it's a process and everything is different levels to it, but that the quote is true. An expert at anything was once a beginner. So we all have an origin. We all had a starting point. It's just like a track meet. Everybody started somewhere, so you just can't give up, but you gotta be willing to be obsessed with learning your craft so that when you open your mouth and you speak, you have something valuable to add, to help out the audience, whether that's students or educators themselves in my space.
Good. So just wrapping things up. Do you have any last words that you want to tell everybody? Not about how to contact you or anything, just last words regarding networking within the education field or speaking field? Yeah. The last thing I would say is this, if I had to say one thing, I would say what I find to be extremely valuable.
And I know what I say is to people and sometimes people think you're just fluffing, Mike. But I'm not, this is not lip service, this is from the heart. If you really want to be successful in addition to the things that I just, I spoke about, you need to have a good mentor coach, you really do.
And I know there's a lot of like group coaching and that's good, group coaching is cool, there's nothing wrong with it. But to me there's a lot of value in being able to work with someone one on one who can understand you, understand, what your struggles are, what your pain points are, and how they can help customize or give You know, the necessary advice that you need to accelerate the process for you as an individual, right?
And I think oftentimes when people are starting out, they're not like you, Mike, because I know you I know you off camera I know how you think and how you function. Most people don't do that. Most people, they want success, but they don't want to invest in themselves. So I would say the greatest investment you can make is investing in yourself, right?
And we invest in so many other things in life. We invest in cars, clothes, concerts, vacations. But we won't invest in ourselves. I got somebody close to me, Mike. I ain't gonna say no names. I'm not gonna get in trouble. I have somebody close to me, Mike. And she was like, I don't have 5, 000 or whatever it was, 8, 000 to invest in a coaching program.
I'm like, really? But I'm like, yeah, handbags, like you got designer handbags that equal 15, 000 between the three of them. They're like 5, 000 a piece and the designer handbag can do nothing for you. It doesn't, like, how can a bag cost more than the money you have in the bag? It's fast, it's fascinating to me.
But then it's you want a level of success, but you're not willing to invest in yourself because then people go there's no guarantees. I guarantee you one thing. If you keep walking around with these designer bags, you're going to be in the same situation you was in yesterday. Absolutely.
Absolutely. I can guarantee you that much. That's great. That's great. Okay. Okay. Reggie, listen. If somebody wants to contact you either to be coached by you or to listen to you or to know about you learn about you, but they just want to say hi. How do they do it? Yeah. Yeah. Great question. So you can find me on all social media platforms at Dr. Reggie Wright Jr. That's dr. Reggie Wright Jr. That's on social media. So that's Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. My website is reggiewrightjr. com, reggiewrightjr. com. And then for coaching, please feel free to reach out to me. That's drrightcoaching. com. Dr. Wright coaching. com says Dr. Wright coaching. com. That's great. Reggie. I can't tell you what kind of a thrill this was for me to have you because listen, you and I got together when I first started in the business and really, there's, there was a number of different avenues I could have taken, but I felt the kinship.
With you, with your background, with my background, and we came together and I wound up here. Again, I can't thank you enough. I can't thank you, Mike. And listen, if there's anything that your listeners and your viewers should take from you, and they don't, probably don't know this, I'm going to tell them, is your resiliency.
From day one, your ability to stay committed to the task because everything in life has ebbs and flows, ups and downs. But through it all, the one thing I can say about you personally is I know that you have never wavered in your commitment to continue to progress, evolve, and get better. And that's going to serve you well.
Because that speaks to your character, Mike. That speaks to your character, brother. Thank you. Thank you so much, Retty. All right, and listen, I'll talk to you soon. All right. Thanks, Mike.
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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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