242. Creating a Supportive Village: Florence Ann Romano's Guide to Meaningful Connections

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This is happiness solved with America's happiness. Coach Sandee Sgarlata.

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Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining me today. I'm so happy you're here. I'm Sandee Sgarlata. I was born in Virginia Beach and raised in the Baltimore Annapolis area and had very humble and tragic beginnings. And as a result, my life was a hot mess.

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Thankfully, 33 years ago, I got my act together. And since that time, I have dedicated my life to serving others and raising awareness that no matter what you've been through, you can choose happiness and live the life of your dreams. Happiness Solved is dedicated to giving you content that is empowering, motivational, inspirational, and, of course, a dose of happiness. It's my way to give back to the world and share other people's stories. This thing called life can be challenging, and my guests share their amazing stories, wisdom, and life lessons that demonstrate anyone can choose happiness.

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You see, happiness is a choice, and the choice is yours. Today's episode is amazing, and I am so grateful for you. Thank you for listening and don't forget to leave a review and follow me on social media at coach. Sandee Sgarlata. Enjoy the show.

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Florence Ann Romano, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited to see you. I'm so happy to be here. I already feel like I'm sitting with a friend, so this is the best way to start a conversation. Yes.

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Now, you probably get this sometimes, but whenever you come across somebody that has a last name and you know people that have the same last so I understand. I already know where this is going. Maybe so my ex husband's sister married a Romano. Okay. And they were from, like, Long Island, so I don't know if you have any roots that go back to Long Island.

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Romano is a very common name, but it's fun to throw it out there because you never know. More often than not when people ask me that question, because I live in Chicago, when they ask me in Chicago if I'm related to Romano's, I usually am. But the Long Island ones, that's not one that I would necessarily know. It doesn't mean I'm not. But generally speaking, where I live, there's a lot of Romanos, and they do tend to be my cousins.

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That's awesome because Scarletta is a very unusual name, and most of the Italians, when they came to this country, they. Changed the G to A-C-I was wondering about that. Yeah. So when there's a Scarletta in the United States, they are some sort of once, twice removed from my ex husband's family. You know what?

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This world is so it gets so small sometimes that I always like to throw it out there because you never. Know and you should. I'm the same way, too. It really is a teeny tiny world when it comes down to it. And you cannot believe we have more in common than we don't, I would say probably in the world with everybody.

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And that's kind of a refreshing thing. So I'm glad you asked. I'd be happy. And that just is a nice segue into the topic of our conversation because I love in your bio you put, It takes a village, and it so does take a village. And it wasn't until I actually had my son, I have one child that I really learned the importance of that, because it really does take a village, at least to raise children.

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And that is the name of your most recent book. It was just released earlier this year, right? Yes, correct. And it's called build a village. So before we dive into that, I always love to hear people's story because we all have a story.

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So what is your story and how you got to where you are today? And then I want to hear a little bit about what inspired you to write this book. Well, the long, Winding road up to kind of what led me to all of this. So back in the day, I was a nanny for a long time, for over 15 years. And at that time, I never knew necessarily that I was going to write books or be an author or be the authority in any sort of way on childcare or relationship building, community building.

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But I was always very interested and sold out for children and relationships. And so after being a nanny for all that time, the winds changed. As Mary Poppins always says, you stay until the winds change. And then the winds changed. I ended up starting a business for digital content.

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And at the same time that I did that, I had the urge to write a children's book, to explain to children the transition of being cared for by their parents to being cared for by a nanny or a caretaker. Because at the time, the statistic was that over 64% of families in America had a nanny or a caretaker. And that was an enormous statistic, and it wasn't going anywhere. It really was indicative of what was happening in our culture. And so I wrote that book called Nanny and Me, and then I started kind of a platform for childcare advocacy in the new millennium.

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And as I did more and more media and engagements and things like that, speaking about how our villages, our lives are affected by childcare, it started getting me thinking also about that phrase that proverb it takes a village to raise a child. And once COVID hit, I kind of took a look around and realized that everybody on a global level knew what it felt like to lose their support systems. And that's very rare for anyone on a global scale to know what something feels like. And so after that, I decided that I wanted to create a book that answered the question, where's the village? Where is this village?

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Is there a number to call? Are there directions on a roadmap? What is it? And so I started going back to that idea of this proverb, it takes a village to raise a child. And I thought, okay, yes, that's true, but what about the people that don't have children?

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Don't they deserve to find their village, to find their people, find their support systems? I created this book, Build Your Village, with six archetypes in it that you relate to. Who am I of these villagers? And who of these villagers do I need in my village? And so it was very inclusive.

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It was whether you were 15 years old or 80 years old, no matter the season of your life, you could find your community in some way, shape or form. I love that. And the one thing that just popped in my head is how amazing this is when it comes to the topic of loneliness, because that's a big topic right now. Well, you hit the nail on the head. I have been talking a lot, Sandy, about the friendship recession, as they're calling it.

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And we do have this epidemic of loneliness happening in our country. And it's definitely on the heels of COVID And I dive into that in the book quite a bit too, about why do we have this friendship recession, why do we have this epidemic of loneliness, why is mental health suffering so much in our country right now? In all different ages, all different races, creeds, religions, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't discriminate, this loneliness. And I truly think that once COVID happened and we had to shelter in place, we had to remove ourselves.

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We had to remove ourselves from people. Once it was time for us to reemerge and reconnect, not only did people not know really, they kind of forgot how to do it, but they also didn't want to do it again. And then they realized as time went on, they were waking up with these feelings of depression, with loneliness, with isolation, and didn't know exactly why or where they were coming from. But the problem also was I'm feeling this way and I don't know what to do about it. And also I'm feeling this way and I don't know why exactly this happened or why did I'm feeling some shame about letting it happen.

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We have to be the solution to also fixing that in our life when we're feeling lonely or isolated or disconnected. And that work to actually take that step, to change it. It's not always the easiest thing for people to do. Yeah, no kidding, it's not. So mental health has been an issue for a number of years.

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And I'm curious because they're still learning about repercussions with having COVID, right? Having long haul symptoms. And some of the things that can happen as a result of the vaccination, both of those things either having it having COVID and there's reports of possibly with the vaccination as well, that it creates symptoms of depression in people that had never so how much of that do you think is really directly related to COVID? Or was it more of the lockdowns or maybe a combination of all of the above? I wish I was a doctor right now to be able to say diagnose it that this is why this happens and this is why this happens.

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I do think it's a combination. I do think in life it's never just one thing. It's never just one thing that's presented to you on a platter wrapped up in a bow, and that's it. I can tell you I'm a great example of all those things. I suppose I've had COVID.

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I've been vaccinated. I had a reaction to the vaccine when I got it where I felt like I got hit by a truck for days and I was like, what's happening to my body? And who knows? We don't know enough about really the repercussions of the vaccine. I just actually got over COVID just a few weeks ago at it, and it was a nasty little bug that I had.

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I had every symptom. This time. I lost my taste and smell also, too, for the first time. It was the craziest thing. But I'm only giving you that background because I will say when I'm sick, I am one of those people that feels like they are never going to get better, ever.

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And it does play with my brain. And I was for quite a while with COVID and losing my taste and smell. Oh, my gosh. As an Italian girl standing, I was like, what? I was like, what if I don't get this back?

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I was like, this is not even worth living if I don't even get this back. It is the most disorienting thing in the whole wide world. Now, I did get it back about after ten days or so, but I was so sick for a while and I kept thinking about the people like you just mentioned that were sick for so much longer than I was, was so much sicker than I was or had repercussions to the vaccine that were much more severe than mine, or people who just have chronic illness in general or have long COVID and living their lives in that way, kind of like in this mental and emotional prison or even physical prison, whatever it might be. You have nothing if you don't have your health. And I understand that.

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I think we all, once we've been really sick, understand how important that is. And I don't think we realize how much of a mental strain and emotional strain your health puts on you. And so I can understand exactly what you're saying. Whatever camp you live in of whatever you believe about why your depression or mental health is suffering because of the consequences of COVID in whatever way it is, I can absolutely understand that. The only thing I can say though to that is once you are physically able or emotionally or mentally, whatever it might be, feel like you can take that step, then it's up to you to do it because your body can heal from it as best it can or whatever, however it's going to be.

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But if you're not happy with how things are, then that is going to fall on you to figure out how to fix it, how to ask for that help, how to take that step, and that vulnerability and that honesty is not always the easiest thing to do. It might be the bravest thing you have to do. And I understand that. Yeah. Well, at the end of the day, everything that's put in front of us is a choice, right.

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It's a choice as to whether or not we're going to sit and be a victim or not ask for help when we're feeling depressed or whatever the case may be. It always comes down to we have to be the ones that take that first step to try to make a positive change in our life, for sure. Right. And hopefully you building a community or you finding your people or you figuring out what support you need in your life is going to be a positive step for you. But sometimes it's not as drastic as COVID.

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Sometimes it's and there's a chapter in my book where I talk about when the village is lost, when the village burns down. And you had mentioned an ex husband divorce is one of the things I mentioned about losing a village. Your village changes when you go through a life transition like that. It could be a divorce, it could be a death, it could be the falling out of a friendship.

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It could be by accident or design that some of those things happen. Whatever the case may be. Sometimes things are not permanent. Most of the time in life they aren't. Right.

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So it's about figuring out when that is in front of you. What does it take to rebuild, what does rebuilding look like and what's your responsibility in it? We always have a responsibility.

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I know. So with your book, you mentioned that you have archetypes. Yes. There's six different archetypes. What are the Six archetypes and what is your favorite one that you can kind of elaborate on?

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I love that question. So the Six are accepting dependable, communicator, cheerleader, organizer, and healer. And I don't expect anyone to be like, okay, I wrote those down and now I'm going to give a definition to each of them. I always like to say the Six because as soon as I say the Six, I can see on people's faces that they're already starting to cast their friends and family into those roles right. Without me even giving you a definition.

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And that's the best part of that. That's the work. That truly is what the work is, is that you do start casting it like you would a play or a movie. These are the main characters of your life. And I was actually with girlfriends the other day, and we were having a little girls day, little pool party.

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And some of the girls were saying to me, we're reading the book right now for the second time. And now I'm reading it through your eyes, and I'm trying to figure out who you think you are of these people. And I started laughing, and I was like, first of all, thank you. What a compliment that you're reading it through my eyes now, even though the book is told from my perspective. So of course it's through my eyes anyway.

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But they were asking, who do you think you are? Come on. Who are these six? Are you? And I said well, I said, I think I'm all six.

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And I don't say that in a way that's ego driven. I'm all six probably in different ways to different people, and I'm not always all six at the same time. There might be a time in my life where I'm the accepting villager to a lot of people and where I'm not the organizer at all because I have no capacity in my life to do that. So I'm not offering those services or those skills to my friends or family. So I think that's to be said for all of us, we all have possibly the potential to be all six of these people, but maybe not all at the same time.

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And I would say that the Healer is probably my favorite. I describe the Healer as the one that is there with you to walk through it with you no matter what the it is. They're your North Star, your guiding light, but they're not there to fix you or fix the situation. And I think I tend to play that role quite a bit in people's lives just because, again, it's what comes most naturally to me. I am not the best organizer all the time, I'll tell you that.

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I don't want to be the one in charge of a spreadsheet for a meal train, for a friend who needs meals for a week. I really don't want to do that. I want to be the one that brings you the food, but please don't make me in charge of organizing the people because I have no time for Excel sheets. I don't like it at all. It reminds me of math too much, so I don't really want to be anywhere near that.

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But my point is, as you start to identify who you are of these villagers, it's also important for you to understand that this is a circle. It can't just be a selfish exercise you have to look at, okay, yes, I need these people in my life. I need these support. I need this support. But also, what am I doing for other people?

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Because that's also how I'm going to learn what I need, too. And I also believe and listen. It's the way I live my life. It doesn't mean anyone else has to live their life this way. But the meaning of life for me is you live a life in service of others.

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That's what this work is about, too, is looking outside of yourself. And usually by doing that, you do end up taking care of yourself, too, in a strange way. Well, the whole thing about service to others is, number one, it takes a village.

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And the thing is, it feels good to help other people. And maybe if you're feeling down and you're feeling lonely, that's one thing you can do right now that's so easy, just help another person out. So funny that you said that, because I often get the question, what's the first step you take if you don't know what to do in building your village? And I always say the first step for me is always philanthropy. If you're really trying to find to meet new people and connect with new people, philanthropy is a great way to do that.

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You think about what's important to you, what makes your heart flutter, I always say. And then go out and find an organization that does that, because you're going to meet like minded people, people with similar values, and you're going to be there for the same reason and same cause. And it's most likely going to open up a whole new world for you of people, and hopefully you'll make some connections there. But it's two birds with 1 st. And you're right.

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It is about putting others ahead of ourselves. And generally that is going to help ourselves, our hearts, our minds, all of it in some sort of way. And it can be small gestures, too. I always tell people that I've read so many personal growth books and things like that, where you're like, I'm not going to do any of this. This is way too hard.

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This is a heavy lift. You just like, toss that book aside right away because you want something that's going to feel doable that you can wrap your arms around, that you feel like, I can actually accomplish this. No one wants to read a book that's going to make them feel worse about themselves. So in the book, I have gut checks and action steps. The gut checks and the action steps that ends at every chapter.

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The gut checks, what did I learn from this chapter? Easy stuff that I'm processing. And then the action steps. What can I do today? Not tomorrow, not in months from now, not a year from now, today.

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What can I do to take a step toward this? And sometimes it's just as easy as sending a text message to someone to remind them that you care or that you're thinking of them and you're taking a step. And so I believe in small things leading to big results. And I believe this work is a lot of that small things leading to big results. And it's taking those steps also that lead you to feeling more and more motivated to continue to grow and grow.

00:21:37
I love that. That's absolutely incredible. So at any point do you talk about because this is something that I have always struggled with is asking others for help. And that's part of utilizing your village as well. So what can you say about that?

00:21:55
That was always a struggle for me, honestly, in life. And I always laugh because I wrote this book, and people think, okay, well, she just does this all perfectly then. And that is not true. I struggle with this just as much as the next person. I didn't write this book because I think I'm perfect at this.

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I think I have failed and failed and failed and challenged and struggled and pulled myself through the mud with so many different things that I'm like, all right, I've tried a lot of different things, guys. So here I've done a lot of that legwork. Here's what I think works. Let's do this together. And I still have to take my own advice every day and work on these things that I have in the book, too.

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So I am not exempt from any of this. But asking for help for me, always when I would think about it, or even when I was younger, even as an adult, probably even yesterday, always made me wonder if I wasn't necessarily weak. If it meant, though, it scared me to think that if I couldn't do it on my own, that it meant that I needed someone. And that was a difference to me. It's not that I thought I was weak.

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It was I didn't want to have to need someone. And here I am, a single girl, I'll be 38 this year, not married, don't have children. And I've learned to ask for help a lot more in my life and learned that it was okay to need people and it was okay to want that. It was also okay to realize that I don't have to do everything myself. I don't have to have all the answers myself.

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And life is more fun when you do have people around you and when you can lean on others. And so I think the idea of asking for help, it's two pronged most of the time that you again think that it makes you weak in some sort of way or that you failed in some sort of way, or number two, that you don't necessarily want to want it because there's shame in it. There's shame or embarrassment in needing help. And that also there's a subgroup to that is, okay, I'm ashamed that I have to ask for the help, okay, I'm going to ask for it because I have no other choice. But after I do that, then I owe a debt and I don't know when I'm going to be able to repay that debt now because I've asked someone for help and eventually I'm going to have to repay the favor.

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And it's like you think that someone's somewhere with like a tally box, like keeping track of it and you don't have that debt to somebody. It's very interesting how our minds work about that. Asking for help is probably next to public speaking for people, one of the hardest things to do. Yeah, for sure. But I love how you explain that.

00:24:53
So what is one thing that people can do right now to help them with building their village? Well, we talked about the philanthropy aspect of it, thinking about what means something to you and trying to find those people. But building your village also is about this evaluation that we're doing on our current village. Now most of the time there isn't someone out there that has absolutely zero people. That does tend to happen when it starts to get more into the elderly capacity, I would say, when maybe you are living on your own without your spouse or your partner.

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You never had children, you don't have grandchildren or they don't live nearby. A lot of the people in your life have passed on or you're living in a nursing home of some kind, whatever it might be. That's a very unique situation and not unique, it's a very specific situation and season of our Lives should we get there? And I do talk about that in the book too, but that is so specific that I kind of want to put that over here for a second and talk to more of kind of the average capacity of what's going on when you're looking at your village and the people that are currently in it. Sometimes I think if you do this evaluation and you see the people that you have, you'll find out that it's not that you don't have the right people, it just might be the right people are not sitting in the right seats.

00:26:30
So what I mean by that is that, okay, the accepting villager, for example, that I mentioned, that's the one I define as the non judgmental one, the one you can reveal secrets to and confide in. Let's say you feel like this person that you have in your life and maybe it's even several people, more than one person can fit into that role. You've got a few different accepting villagers, but you have this one friend that's just kind of falling short and you're left feeling like they're just always disappointing you or there's some betrayal going on there or whatever it might be. And you have to step back and wonder, is this person sitting in the right seat? Are they truly my accepting villager?

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Maybe they're better off being the organizer. They're the one I can delegate something to and they'll get the task done, but it's not going to necessarily be a relationship that goes super deep. I won't be maybe revealing secrets and the deepest part of myself to this person. Maybe that's where they should be sitting instead of the accepting villager seat. And then they won't be failing you in that way.

00:27:39
You're going to be setting them up for success. We can't expect people to meet us where we want them to be. We have to meet them where they are. And part of this work too, is understanding that everyone has their skill sets, everyone has their strengths. And we need to be casting people in our lives according to those strengths and not making people be someone that they're not.

00:28:10
I love that so much because so often in life, relationships, circumstances, situations are all damaged, right? Because somebody put an expectation on another person and they had no idea that. They were that's the word. That was what was expected of them. And I've had my own situations where people expected me to behave in a certain way and I'm like, I never got the memo, so I don't know that this is what you're expecting of me.

00:28:46
How can you be upset with me if I didn't know that to begin with? Right? That word expectation is exactly it. And so many relationships suffer because of it. Friendships, romantic relationships, whatever it might be.

00:29:00
We can't be mind readers. I always say that we can't. And we have to ask for what we want the same way we have to ask for help. Sometimes asking for what you need, that should be empowering. It should not be shameful.

00:29:16
We should be better, not should be. We could should all over ourselves, as they would say. But we want to try to be better at that. That can be something that we are cognizant of and intentional about. Because you can ask for what you need instead and not be bossy about it.

00:29:33
You can say what you mean and not say it mean. It's all about tact. It's all about delivery, communication, it's nuance, there's finesse to it. And so yeah, this expectation that we put on ourselves even and we put on others, that's where we get into trouble. Oh, completely.

00:29:53
So for the listeners out there, instead of placing an expectation on another person, try just asking them, you know what, this is what I really need from you. Do you think you can do that for me? Right. That simple. That simple.

00:30:08
But it's hard. It's hard for people to do that. And then imagine being the recipient of that though, because then do you feel like as a people, pleaser, I have to say yes to that because I don't want to disappoint them. So the way you structure that sentence, giving someone an out, understanding that you're not putting the pressure on them, understanding that you are going to accept whatever that answer is based on what they think they can do, their skill set is their. Capacity level, whatever.

00:30:39
Again, it is about the delivery of that. The words you use are important in life. They always are. Italian, there's a phrase that I can't say it in Italian, but it's a phrase that says the tongue doesn't have bones, but it can break bones.

00:30:59
You do have to be careful about the way you say things because words tend to stay there. They stay in your gosh. They do. Even though people always say you forget what people say if you write it down, it's always remembered. I'm like, I don't know, I remember a lot of things that people have said that you wish well.

00:31:18
And then there's that famous quote by May Angelo that says people aren't going to remember what you say, they remember how you make them feel. So if you're delivering something that isn't communicated properly, it's not going to feel good. The recipient is not going to feel and they're going to remember that that what you said did not feel good. Exactly. You're reading my heart.

00:31:41
It's so funny you said that Maya Angelou quote. Because at the end of my emails I have a quote at the end of my emails in my signature. And that's the quote that I have. It's true how you make people feel. It really is.

00:31:54
At the end of the day, I think what you're remembered least when you give, like, a toast at a birthday party or something or whatever you think about these milestone moments when you're with people and yeah, you tell stories that are funny or this or whatever. But generally, most of the time, even eulogies, you're mostly usually talking about how that person made people feel in life, describing them a certain way. And so I think that's a really good note to make sure people understand that really, this work, community building and relationship building, all of it, it's you understanding how you want to feel and also how you want to make others feel. That's another way of living that life in service of others. And also putting the oxygen mask on yourself first, knowing who you are and how you can serve and knowing also what you need and knowing that you deserve it.

00:32:52
That self love is also very important as well. Oh, my gosh, I love it. Florence, this has been so great. So is there anything else that you'd like to share with the audience that we haven't talked about? I would love for you to think of me as your virtual village.

00:33:06
I answer every DM I get on social Romano, you know, across the you know, reach out to me. I am here for you. If you're struggling with taking this step, let me help you take the first step. And I really am here to hopefully be that support system. Oh my gosh, thank you so much.

00:33:25
And I love everything you're doing because it really does take a village. I love it. Thank you. I love everything you're doing as well. And we are in each other's villages now.

00:33:34
That's right. Love it. Love it, love it, love it. All right. Thank you so much.

00:33:39
And thank you everyone for listening today.

00:33:44
You movie.

00:33:53
I certainly hope that you enjoyed today's interview. Thank you so much for joining me. And as always, I hope that you and your family are healthy and safe. And that your lives are filled with peace, joy and happiness. Take care, everyone.