The Weight of the Title: On Cheyenne Bryant, Simulacra, and Doing the Actual Work

The Weight of the Title: On Cheyenne Bryant, Simulacra, and Doing the Actual Work

Everyone is asking whether Cheyenne Bryant lied about her credentials. I'm asking a different question: what kind of environment makes that lie work? This episode sits at the intersection of anti-intellectualism, media literacy collapse, AI, and the brutal paradox Black women face as the most educated demographic in the country who are still systematically undervalued. I bring in Baudrillard, break down the Amanda Seales and Maya Angelou comparison, and get honest about what it actually costs to earn the title. Companion essay: https://thenetworkingdr.substack.com/p/the-weight-of-the-title

What It Actually Looks Like to Work with The Networking Dr.™

People ask me all the time — what exactly do you do? In this episode, I'm pulling back the curtain. I break down the "networking first" model that defines every engagement at The Networking Dr.™, the doctoral research behind it, and the four service areas where I help founders, professionals, and organizations grow through relationships. I share a client testimonial, get specific about who I work best with, and introduce the Connection Blueprint™ intake — a tailored, two-part experience designed to give us both a clear starting point before we ever sit down together. If you've been curious about working with me, start here.   Start your Connection Blueprint™ intake: https://connect-blueprint-flow.base44.app [https://connect-blueprint-flow.base44.app] Learn more: https://www.thenetworkingdr.com [https://www.thenetworkingdr.com] Subscribe to Beyond the Business Card: https://thenetworkingdr.substack.com [https://thenetworkingdr.substack.com]

Episode 5: From Research to Reality

I spent years interviewing Black women entrepreneurs for my doctoral research at Pepperdine. I asked them about their networks, their decisions, their wins and losses. I wrote 387 pages about how they build and sustain businesses. And then I left my role as Senior Director at a small business and launched my own consultancy. This episode is about what that transition actually looks like when you stop studying it and start living it. I talk about the career arc that brought me here, from a global consultancy to a small business to my own firm. I talk about what The BOW Institute has taught me as a training participant, and why being in a room with founders who are building, not performing, has been one of the most grounding parts of this process. If you are considering the leap from someone else's org chart to your own, this one is for yo

ON CALL: CONNECTIONS & CONVERSATIONS Episode 4: You're Not Invisible. You're Just Inconsistent.

Episode 4: You're Not Invisible. You're Just Inconsistent. After the last presidential election, I wrote a post. It was researched, honest, and fair. It was also some of the most personally revealing writing I had done in a professional context. I read it eleven times. It is still in my drafts. In this episode, I use that story as the entry point for a conversation about Intentional Visibility — one of the four pillars of my R.I.S.E. Framework, developed through my doctoral research on how Black women entrepreneurs build and leverage professional networks. Intentional Visibility is not about posting more. It is about showing up strategically, consistently, and authentically in the spaces where it counts. I walk through five specific places professionals quietly lose ground on visibility — from showing up only when you have news, to confusing a full calendar with being known. We also get into the cringe factor: that hesitation between having something genuine to say and actually saying it, and what it is quietly costing you. If you have ever closed a tab on something you should have published, this one is for you. In this episode: * Why visibility problems look like waiting, not invisibility * The difference between genuine connection and programmatic outreach * How to maintain your network before you need it * What your outdated bio is actually communicating Connect and go deeper: Substack: https://thenetworkingdr.substack.com [https://thenetworkingdr.substack.com] Website: https://www.thenetworkingdr.com [https://www.thenetworkingdr.com]

On Call Episode 3 - Networking Was Never Neutral: Law, Power, and the Attack on Formal Identity-Based Networks

Three legal actions. Six weeks. One pattern. In this episode, Dr. DeJuan Stroman-Price connects the dots between the EEOC's lawsuit targeting a women's networking event, Edward Blum's challenge to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation scholarship, and Executive Order 14398 — the new federal contracting mandate with False Claims Act teeth. Drawing on her post-doctoral research and the history of Black institution-building in America, she makes the case that these aren't isolated legal disputes. They are a coordinated effort to dismantle the infrastructure that formal identity-based networks produce — and if you are a Black woman in business, the stakes are in your pipeline right now.