Reggie D. Ford drove two hours from Nashville on Monday, March 16, for a first. It was the first time he’d ever read his new children’s book to a group of students, and he chose Huntingdon Primary School to do it.
That book, I Am the Rose, is not yet available to the public but can be pre-ordered on Ford’s website. It follows a young boy who discovers a flower blooming through a crack in a sidewalk and, guided by his grandmother, comes to see himself in it. The story teaches young readers about strength, perseverance and growing through difficulty.
It’s a message Ford said he wishes someone had given him earlier in life.
“I think if we instill positive messages in children early, their inner dialogue can become, ‘I am a good person, I can do hard things, my struggles don’t define me’, and the more resilient they’ll be later in life, when difficult things arise,” Ford said.
Ford was born and raised in Nashville. He attended Montgomery Bell Academy and went on to Vanderbilt University, where he studied finance.
By most measures, his life looked like a success story. But in adulthood building his career, Ford said old wounds had caught up with him.
“My upbringing was marked by a lot of trauma and adversity, and I didn’t have language to communicate what I was feeling,” he said. “It came out in behavior. My behavior was the perfectionist who showed up and got in line, and that boded well for me in a lot of aspects of life, until as a young adult it all just came spilling out.”
That experience turned Ford into a mental health advocate.
He published a bestselling memoir in 2021, titled PTSD: Perseverance Through Severe Dysfunction, which draws on his experiences with developmental and intergenerational trauma.
In 2024, Ford gave a TEDx talk titled “You Are Enough: How Self-Improvement Harms, What Self-Love Heals,” in which he advocates for shifting away from seeking external validation and toward building self-worth from within.
Now, Ford is pursuing a master’s degree in applied positive psychology at Penn State, studying under Martin Seligman, widely considered the father of the field.
“Positive psychology focuses on a strength-based approach to helping people thrive,” Ford explained. “So much of traditional psychology had been focusing on what was wrong with the person and trying to fix that, versus looking at the fact that you have a lot of strengths and to build on that.”
That philosophy is woven throughout I Am the Rose.
The back of the book includes what Ford calls “positive interventions”, incorporating exercises for gratitude, affirmations and breathing techniques designed to help children regulate their emotions.
“Nervous system regulation is a huge step to regulating our emotions,” he said. “The breathing exercises help reduce cortisol levels. It’s about relaxing before our automatic reactions take over. I’ve been doing some breathing with the kids. It’s been so cute.”
During his presentation, Ford had the children flex their muscles, look at an imagined mirror, and repeat after him: I am strong. I am capable. I can do hard things.
“I wrote this book in memory of my grandmother, who used to tell me I was strong, that I could do anything I set my mind to,” Ford told the children. “Some of y’all have people in your life that tell you things like that. And if you don’t, I believe you can do it. Whatever it is that you set your mind to. I believe you can make that happen.”
