Episode 186 with Florence Romano
Some of the Loneliest People I Know are the Busiest
SHOW NOTES:
In this heartwarming episode of the 1000 Hours Outside podcast, we sit down with Florence Romano, affectionately known as "The Windy City Nanny" and author of "Build Your Village." Florence's unique journey as an actor and her experience growing up in a multigenerational home have taught her invaluable lessons about the importance of community and relationships.
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
186 FLORENCE ROMANO
Florence Romano Are you ready? Yes, I'm ready when you are. All right, here we go.
Ginny Yurich Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich and the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and have an author with me today. Just finished reading her book called Build Your Village A Guide to Finding Joy and Community in Every Stage of Life. Florence Romano, welcome.
Florence Romano Hi, Ginny. I'm so thrilled to be here. You're so effervescent and just so happy that the nicest way just for the interview with someone who has such wonderful energy like you do.
Ginny Yurich Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate that. I'm super excited to talk about this. I think community is so important and you have such a unique perspective just due to your history. So I just want to read real quick. You're an author, a philanthropist, a businesswoman and a village and childcare advocate. So you have done all sorts of different things. You've been on all sorts of different news and television shows and you have a degree in performance theater. But I love eclectic lives.
Florence Romano And it's that good. I tell you, that's pretty eclectic. Oh, my gosh.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, Yeah, it is eclectic. I would give it like just a couple of minutes on that performance.
Florence Romano Theater performance. It's actually gets more eclectic than I originally thought. I was going to go to school for broadcast journalism. And then I decided that, you know, theater has always been important to me, and I kind of feel like it's kind of the same thing. It's all kind of performance in some sort of way. And then I went to Bradley University. They had an unbelievable theater department, and I figured it was two birds with one stone. I was learning communication and all of its forms. And I'd have to tell you that in all of the different things I've done in my life, from a business owner to this and that, an author and all that, probably being a performance theater major was the best degree I could have ever gotten to accomplish any of the things that I did.
Ginny Yurich That's so interesting because I think a lot of people would look at that and think that it is narrow, but truly it's not.
Florence Romano It's not. I mean, I live that life and the world, I think, is about relationships and understanding people. And as an actor, you have to learn to understand how people think and feel and all of that. So I'd say in business that probably came so in hand to me because it was relationship building, it was also sales, it was communication, it was all of those things and all of that. I kind of learned on stage, you know what, I think you know that economics class that I always wish I had taken, I'm like, I think it's all right. I'm okay with that.
Ginny Yurich But that's really interesting. I love that because you never know how what you do is going to impact down the road. So, I mean, you got to go for the things that rejuvenate you and light you up. Right? Okay. So you were the Windy City nanny of the Windy City nanny. You have a children's book called Nanny and Me. And you did that for several years?
Florence Romano Yes. Yes. I was a nanny for over 15 years of my life. So I after I retired from being a nanny and I always use the Mary Poppins phrase, I stay until the wind changes. And the wind changes for lots of reasons. And at that time I retired to start a digital content business after that. But at the same time, I decided to write a children's book and that was Nanny and me. And I wanted to write a book because at the time the statistic was over 65% of families in America had a nanny or a caretaker. And I was really blown away by that statistic. And I thought, Gosh, this is not a trend. This is part of our culture now. And so I wanted to write a book that explained the transition of being cared for by their parents, to being cared for by a nanny or a caretaker. And that ended up being nanny and me.
Ginny Yurich Hmm. Okay. So having this career for 15 years, that's longer than I realized. It's a long time that gave you the opportunity. And this is an opportunity that most of us do not have to be in other people's homes and lives in a very intimate way. Like when I was a kid. I loved being in other people's homes, you know, And it would be for a short period of time, maybe overnight, maybe, or maybe for a couple of hours, go for dinner. And I loved observing what other families did. Like, I had a friend and her mom always had read Rising on the Counter and that she sold it and it was delicious. So any time you went over to her house for dinner, she had fresh bread and you just kind of how people organized their homes and whose kids are in what rooms and how do they plan their meals. And you really just get a glimpse. It gives you a lot, doesn't it, to be in someone's home to think, okay, that's something I would want to emulate. That's not something I would want to emulate. So talk to us about this experience of being in people's homes and observing. Basically, you really had a big lesson on observing how they built community.
Florence Romano MM Well, I would say that I've always been probably a curious person in terms of relationship building and just how people find. Function. You. I grew up in a multigenerational home. I'm an old fashioned Italian family, and my grandparents lived with us growing up. My mom's parents, they were the loves of our lives. I also have a special needs brother, Michael, who has autism. I'm the oldest of four kids. We have a lot of cousins and extended family, so I grew up in an enormous village. And what I realized as I got older was that what I was born into was not necessarily what everyone else was. And I was very lucky, very blessed, very fortunate. However you want to put it, to grow up. And what I was what I grew up in. But what about people who, like I said, are not born into that? Does that mean that they don't deserve to find that that they don't deserve to find their community or their people? And so from a young age, I was always curious about how people built their families, the dynamics of their families, the personalities, how they structured it, the values of their families. Even so, as I got older and I started babysitting and then becoming a nanny, I did become involved, like you said, joining in people's families in a very intimate way. And I also took that very seriously. I knew that I was going to see and hear things that they didn't necessarily want me to, but I was going to be there and I was going to have to treat it with a type of sacredness, I suppose. But also the most important thing for me was the children, of course, but not just taking care of the children. Also understanding that I had to walk a very fine line between keeping the trust of the children and keeping the trust of the parents because they were going to be things I saw with the children that the parents also didn't see. And that was tested for me many times. And there's a quick story I can tell about a little girl that I needed for where her parents were very difficult on her in terms of educational pressure. And I saw how she was kind of crumbling under it. And there was one night where she was making herself sick over it, and I had to go to the parents and say, listen, I'm seeing something here with her and I need you to know. But you can't go tell her that I'm tattling. You know, I need to keep her trust. You know, she's confiding in me. But we need to find a way to fix this because this isn't healthy. And we did. And I ultimately ended up being fixed, and they were very grateful for me coming to them. But that took for me a lot of reflection on how do I go to them and tell them that I'm seeing something that they are responsible for without attacking them for what they're doing. And so this wasn't just one example of, you know, walking that delicate line of making sure that you're there to advocate for the family and for everyone, but also being respectful to to the parents, knowing you are not the parent, that's tricky.
Ginny Yurich I'm sure it takes a lot of wisdom, a lot of thought, and you would learn a lot, I'm sure, along the way, a whole lot. So would you say that in your experience you're out in the community, you're taking kids places? Would you say that in your experience you think that more people have what you had or more people don't have that.
Florence Romano In terms of what I grew up with?
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Florence Romano I would say that it would maybe be 5050. I you know, I would if I was going to be generous, I suppose, and giving it a percentage. I think what also was very, I guess shocking to me was that people have a very difficult time asking for help and letting that love it. And I think in order for us to really build a community and to find our people, to find our villages, it is going to take us being vulnerable and us being honest about what it is that we need or what it is that's lacking or how we are struggling. And that is so difficult for people to do. I'd say next to speaking in public, which is like number one, the number one fear in America or whatever it may be, I think asking for help is a close second to that.
Ginny Yurich Wow. So you talk in the book about loneliness, and I have a lot of people and we have a Facebook group and a lot of people will post usually they post anonymously, but they say, I'm having a hard time finding friends. And so in this book, you go through six types of friends, six types of villagers that you could be looking for. You can think through kind of what your role is in that greater sense of community. But there was a center that really stuck out to me. You said I observed families who socialized frequently but weren't thriving like families who had a support system. So it's an interesting thought that socialization, getting out, doing things with other families, going out to dinners, having people over that, that doesn't necessarily immediately equate to having a support system like you're talking about, asking for help and that type of thing. So what are some of the keys? I mean, because if you're socializing frequently, that's a lot of output. It is. There could be a lot of cost involved. It could be a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of rejection. People don't show up. They don't want to come, that type of thing. How can we move to having the social time also expand into building a support system at the same time?
Florence Romano Well, it's the quality versus quantity conversation. You know, some of the loneliest people I know, Jenny, are the busiest. You know, it's how are you spending your time and with whom is the more important conversation? I think I would say I have a pretty social life. I'm kind of always doing something on the go. And there will be weeks where I'm like, gosh, why am I still feeling so depleted? Why am I still feeling like I'm not filled up or I'm not satiated or whatever the word is for you? And usually if I do that, that exercise of really evaluating how I've been spending my time, I realize that I really haven't been spending my time in ways that like, to use your word, rejuvenate me or fill me back up or put that oxygen mask on me first so I can continue to go on. You know, I've noticed that if I don't get that family time, I don't spend that time with my mom or I'm with my sisters or some of my best friends, that if I'm doing the other things, it's still not taking the place of that. So it's being also particular and specific about the things that you're doing. And also to go back to what you talked about before, about how people are saying they have a hard time making friends and still having a hard time making those connections. You also have to do the work of realizing where the gaps are in your life right now. And you mentioned my six archetypes in the book that I created. I wanted to create six villagers because I wanted people to feel like they could wrap their arms around something. We've all read those self-help books, right, Ginny? Where they're like, Okay, here are the things you do, And you're like, I'm not going to do any of these things. I'm going to do nothing in this book because this is way too difficult. So no thanks. And I didn't want my book to be like that. I wanted it to be doable and not such a heavy lift. And I wanted people to read these six villagers and think to themselves, You know what? I already have some of this going on in my life. Okay, This is good. You know, the low hanging fruit. Where is it in your life now? I mentioned these six villagers and we'll go back to it. But the six very quickly are accepting, dependable communicator, cheerleader, organizer and healer. Now, I'm saying those quickly on purpose, because without me even giving a definition to them. Jenny, I bet you I bet those listening you're starting to already define what that is to you and starting to cast people in your head. And that's what I want you to do. It is that easy. But once you start doing that, you'll start again. Like I said, realizing where the gaps are and also realizing something very important to maybe you have all six of those people, but you're still feeling like your relationships are failing you. Maybe it's because you have the wrong people sitting in the wrong seats or the right people sitting in the wrong seats. It's like a play or a movie. You're casting these people in your life, right? Go back to the performance theater thing. Think you're casting these people in your life, and sometimes you need to recast or sometimes people need to be fired from roles, whatever it might be. But you have the power to do that. And you also in life where I think we feel like there's so much that's out of our control, there's so much that we can't manage, that this is one of the things that we can. We do have the power within ourselves to make these decisions and to find our people.
Ginny Yurich I'm always fascinated, Florence, by people like yourself who are able to boil things down to these sort of simpler terms to have such an understanding of what a village is built from a village of people, a community of people. Like, I don't know, I wouldn't ever be able to do that, to say, look, you know, someone plays this role and someone plays that role and these are all important for all these integrated ways. How did you end up there? How did you think of it? Or where did that come from?
Florence Romano Well, you know, I think I I've always thought about life building kind of like a play Blade Runner performance theater degree. I suppose in my life I've always liked to be able to define how people show up in my life. I realized a long time ago when I was looking at my friendships, even in my cousins and all of that, you know, my sisters. I loved figuring out how their relationship to me was different than other peoples and like what they brought to my life that was different than someone else. And then I started to kind of impact that a bit more. I was out with some of my sorority sisters who I'm still friends with to this day, and we are four of the most different people you'll ever meet in your life. It's so funny that all four of us are friends. We've been. Friends now, you know, 20 plus years. And we were all talking about why we're all friends and we were all telling each other what the other person brings to our life and how they support us. And I realized that all of us are friends for different reasons. And I would like to say this is going to sound terrible. I would like to think that in this group I'm probably more the Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City. We're kind of all of them have like me in common. But what I also realized, too, was that you have the friend you're going to go to when you need the tough love, or you're going to have the friend you're going to go to when you need to confide in someone. And you know they're not going to tell a soul or the friend you're going to go to where you know you can cry and you're not going to be judged for it. You know, as I started thinking about that, I started to create those villagers in my mind where I'm like, Well, what is that? Who are those people? What are those skills that those people have? And those six were able to be boiled down to some specific skills, which, of course, I don't list everything. There's, you know, millions more of that could be there. But I wanted to give people something tangible to be able to help them figure out where, again, the gaps are based on where there are the biggest needs. I would say as human beings, like the accepting villager, for example, that I mentioned, that's the non-judgmental person in your life. I think that's a person that we all need. We all need someone who is not going to judge us. Maybe you have more than one person and that's wonderful. You can have ten people who are your accepting villager and you know there's no limit there. But I do think there are certain things as human beings that we need. And the main things, I suppose, I think we need in terms of support are found in those six.
Ginny Yurich That's really interesting. I guess I've never thought about what is it that makes this relationship tick versus that relationship and what is it that we're mutually offering each other? Why? Why are they friends with me or why not? Yeah, that's pretty fascinating.
Florence Romano You mentioned something very important to this. Work isn't just about what do I need? Me, me, me. This work is about. Okay, What? Of course, again, what villagers do I need. But also who am I to other people? How do I fit into other people's villagers? What villagers am I? And you're going to find out too, that you are not the same villager to all the same people. There are people that I'm their organizer, and I'll never ever be their healer, because maybe that's just not the substance of our relationship, but that's the status of ours and it works. And you're also going to realize that there's a season and a reason for all of this, too. You're not always going to stay the same Villager forever. I talk about in the book, I froze my eggs when I was 35 and went through IVF and it was hard. Was hard on my body, was hard on my mind. It was hard on basically about everything. And I was not able to be a very good villager for a lot of people at that time. And I needed to accept more help that I was giving. Very difficult for me to do. I like to be the one who does most of that for people. But I also was very honest people saying, I'm just not capable of dot, dot, dot right now in my life. And it's okay that you also say that too, that you're just not capable of being that organizer villager because you just don't have the capacity or the bandwidth in your life to support that way. But you can be that healer. You can be the person that they call up on the phone and you give them some advice, or that cheerleader who does the rah rah thing, you know, with a couple text messages and says, you know, I'm here for you, I'm thinking of you, Whatever it is, it's not grand gestures. Jenny, I think that's important for people to understand, too. It's not you showing up in big ways all the time. Oftentimes, relationships and community are small things that just make you feel heard and understood.
Ginny Yurich MM We've talked about that before, like has been and I that sometimes you can well, this is what we've talked about in context of I travel and speak at conferences across the country and conferences are busy and you have very little free time or time to connect, but you do a little bit, I mean maybe it's a 15 minute lunch or maybe it's a 12 minute conversation or something like that. Very small, like in the grand scheme of life, and maybe it's only happened one time, right? But you can come away from an experience like that. I go to this conference called Wild and Free, and it's in Franklin, Tennessee, I think, most years. And it's it's like a 24 hour thing, You know, maybe it goes 6 p.m. to 6 p.m. and you think, well, how could you possibly come away with relationships in 24 hours now? But you sure do.
Florence Romano Sure.
Ginny Yurich Do you Sure. Do people that you feel like you could text and call, Right.
Florence Romano Right. Well that's exactly it. You feel like you could do that, but you're also attending a conference like that. I want to challenge people to understand that the reason why you're able to maybe have a relationship. Should come from those 24 hours. It's because you're in a place that you're meeting. People that have shared values are like minded to you. So there's already energetically something that you have probably have in common. And that also makes it easier to form those relationships, which I'll take it a step further then. Jenny, You know, people always say, what's the first step you take if you feel like you can't find community? And I always say philanthropy is a way that I've always done that. I figure out, like maybe if you move to a new city, you don't know how to meet people, but you research, you Google whatever it is, you know what sort of things mean something to you in terms of philanthropy, a way of giving back, and you join an organization or something and you're going to go there again with people that are like minded who have similar values cuz you already have something in common that might make it easier to let down your guard and connect and even just naturally make those relationships the same way you're talking about going to a conference. So it is about putting yourself in an environment energetically that is going to behoove you, that's going to compliment you.
Ginny Yurich That's really encouraging because maybe it's not quite as hard as we make it out to be. And you said in the book, most villagers don't just show up at your door. Instead, you must seek them out, which is easier said than done. But you are giving some really practical ways to do that and some hope that sometimes you think, well, goodness, you see people that are really good friends, or especially people come from a family like yours where maybe that's not ever going to be an option for someone else. They don't have that right. And so you think, well, goodness, you know, it's going to take me ten years. It's going to take me 20 years to build these relationships. But really, truly, like you said, if they have the same outlook on some different things, you have some crossover of interest, then those relationships can form quickly and deeply and you can really bond.
Florence Romano And also for people, for moms out there, dads out there, this just happened to one of my best girlfriends. She moved to Texas. Her whole family, enormous family was here in Chicago. And it was the hardest move of her life, her and her kids. And that was it. And she had to start over. And we had a lot of conversations about it. And she's not a wallflower. She's very, very effervescent and loves people, gets her charge from people. So this was very difficult for her, even more so because she does thrive with relationships. So we talked about it and I said, you're going to go to the park tomorrow and you are going to see who's there and you're going to walk yourself up to a couple of moms and you're going to start a conversation. And before you leave, you're going to ask if it's okay to share your information, your contact information, and you're going to go from there. And she did. And she did start making relationships. And good thing that it's easy for her to go up and talk to people. But then it made me think gave me pause. What about people that are not as aggressive? I suppose that way maybe a little bit more shy. You know, that's not easy for them to do, right? So it's about also figuring out what comes naturally to you in terms of connection. But then also if you want it, well, how are you going to step outside your comfort zone a bit to get it? What's the saying? You know, to get something you've you've never had before, you have to do something you've never done before. And like I said, a lot of this work is based in honesty and bravery and being comfortable with being a little uncomfortable sometimes. And so I, like I always mentioned to I can't make you want it, but if you are figuring out in your life right now that you're feeling isolated or your mental health or your emotional well-being is suffering, then maybe it's time for a change. But I can give you the directions in this book. I can give you the road map, but I can't make you get in the car and drive there.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. Or have those conversations. Right. Which can be terrifying if you're a little more timid. Definitely terrifying. People might look at you like you're odd. They might not want to have the conversation. But then your other idea I thought, was also a really good one. Maybe it's a little less in your face. If you're going to a park and you're going to walk up to someone. But if you go to an event or you go to some charity thing or you join in on something that's already happening already planned, then that might be a little bit of an easier way. Maybe get place at a table with someone or.
Florence Romano Like a book club or something like that where you are going to have to go and have, you know, it's going to be built in conversation kind.
Ginny Yurich Of, Yeah, it's a little bit more natural than you having to step out in that way. So there's a lot of levels there, right, that some people are going to be comfortable that just go to a random place and walk up to someone else. And then some people might be more comfortable in a different type of environment. But those things always yield fruit, I think. And whether that becomes your best friend or not, social interactions just in and of themselves are good for you. And so maybe that has a short shelf life or maybe it has a long shelf life. I don't think that really matters. I think that you have these different interactions and they enhance your life.
Florence Romano I agree, and you never know where it leads either. I've met. People that have led me to other friendships. And that person really was just a conduit. You know, it's not a person that I have a deep relationship.
Ginny Yurich Right? I talked to this woman named Shannon Martin, and she wrote a book called It Starts With Hello. Oh, I love that. And I thought that was really good. Yeah. That all relationships start with that. They start with the greeting. Right. And you don't you really don't know. Like, if you look back on the relationships that you still have, you wouldn't have known at the beginning. This one's going to last me 20 years or 30 years. You just don't know.
Florence Romano So you have no idea. And that's that that's part of life, you know? You know, I think we want to control so much. You know, we can't go into relationships or friendships thinking, you know, this has to be for the long haul. We have to grow old together. You don't know what's going to happen. And you have to also know that regardless of what happens, you can handle it. And it's then to be for whatever amount of time that is a season, a reason, a lifetime, that honestly, the older I get, the more I realize that is so dang true.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. You know, people talk about, like, a squiggly life path that just kind of goes all over the place. But all of those things are building you to where you are today. So let's talk about some of these villagers. I do think it's an interesting thing to think about as your seasons of life change. Like, for example, I talked to this man named John a couple of times. He writes business books. They're really good and really some self-help books that are really good, the kind that like give you some good takeaways. And so he travels a lot for his job. He speaks around the country as well, but he does it in different seasons. So he talks about travel John versus John that's there. Right. So he has traveled, John, and how does he maintain his relationship? So it's an interesting thing to think about the villagers in terms of like short seasons and long seasons that four, six months out of the year, I don't know how long it is. He couldn't probably be the organizer.
Florence Romano Right.
Ginny Yurich So he's going to have to shift. Day. How do you maintain friendships? And I think it gives you a good framework to think, okay, because sometimes I would think, well, I've been gone for three months. Are we going to have any friends when we come home? You know? Right. Right. But it gives you some tools because you could say, okay, well, for these three months, I'm not going to be able to be the organizer. That's not going to be me. But maybe one of these other five fit for that period of time. So do you want to pick one and talk about it?
Florence Romano Sure. So I would say that, you know, that's a very good question about, you know, how do you pivot when you need to pivot with these six villagers? And let me say it this way, first you have to meet people where they are, not where you want them to be in terms of friendship. We have to give each other a lot of grace. We have to be understanding. We have to do that for ourselves, too. So, for example, let's say that you are on the road like that and you're not able to connect in person as much as you would like. That doesn't mean that you still can't have a finger on the pulse of that friendship. And an example of that, something I do. I keep the text threads on my phone open. Not all of them. Gosh, that would be that would be ridiculous. But if I've talked to someone recently and they've kind of indicated that they're going through something or things a little tough right now or they've got something big on the horizon, I'll keep that text thread open because when I go through it at night or during the day, whenever I have some downtime, I'll send a text message. And I always say this wellness check with an exclamation point because of course, and wellness check to me always means I am checking in on you whenever you feel that you can. You know, you have some time, let me know how you're doing. And I just pop in there with that. And this could be a person that I don't really ever see or talk to that much. But we've reached that, that I want them to feel like someone remembered that. And so I could do that. And this actually just recently happened to a girl who lives in my community. I don't see her very often, but she's part of a friend group of girls that I have, but we're not the closest. But she just she just lost her brother. And I've just been keeping it keeping tabs on her center text message. Do you need groceries this week? Dinner. Are you doing okay? Something like that. And I can do that from anywhere in the world. I did it from New York. Now, you know, I mean, so it and, you know, that's the great thing about technology. We can show up for people in so many different ways now, and we can show love in different ways, too, with a click of a button. So that's my advice to you out there. If you feel like you can't show up physically, you know, be attending that birthday party for your friend's kid or whatever it is, there's ways to still show up in ways to make them feel like they are still important to you and still valued.
Ginny Yurich That's such good advice. Can you tell me what you mean by when you say keeping a text thread open?
Florence Romano Sure, sure. So. So I guess I've even show you on my phone here. So on my phone I have you know, you have all your texts. You know, I will. I delete. I go through and delete a lot of them, you know, like people I don't talk to very often. I'm like, All right, I don't need that name. I don't need this. But if it's someone that popped in that I had a conversation with, that I was like, Oh, they mentioned something that I want to remember. I keep the text, so when I'm going through it, it reminds me that I need to go back in and remind myself to check in on that person. I also make notes in my calendar. Someone told me the other day that she had a very important doctor's appointment coming up for for her fertility testing, and it was like two or three weeks from now. From then when I talked to her. So I put it in my phone and said, you know, she's got this. And then that morning I texted her and said, Thinking of you, simple, just like that. And that's it. And she said, I can't believe you remember it. And I'm like, and I put it in my calendar. Of course, you know, I don't know if I would have remembered on my own. It's just taking that extra 2 seconds just to put something in your calendar that is going to mean the world to someone a few weeks from now. You don't know what kind of day someone's having and you popping in. And that way that may be the difference. That makes the difference, especially in a world today where mental health is struggling as much as it is. You know, I just want people to understand that you can be there for people in a way that seems so insignificant but makes them feel so seen. And that may be the difference in their day regarding decisions that they make that could be sometimes detrimental.
Ginny Yurich As small gestures matter. Small gestures they do. What a great reminder. So the accepting, the dependable, the cheerleader, the communicator, which you would think would be the talker, but you actually say that's the listener, the like.
Florence Romano Isn't that the funny part about it? Is that really the listener? I mean, again, you can be liberal as with these definitions, as you go through them and how they apply to your life. But the communicator oftentimes is going to have to listen in order to execute. And this is where, you know, the organizer who also delegates the communicator and the organizer can have some permeation. And you'll see that in all of these that they do. But I did that on purpose. So I want it to be fluid. It's not so rigid. You've got to fit into these boxes. And these are the only box listening. This is something I've had to learn in my life too. And I think it's a constant lesson for me is how to be a better listener because I'm a pretty verbose person. I blame the stage training, but I also need to learn when to be quiet because it can't be all about me. It shouldn't be all about me. And if I'm just going to constantly be what I hope to be is an everlasting student, then I need to. I need to be quiet and listen. And it also teaches you a lot in those in those moments where you are listening about yourself, too, about how you are processing information, how you're taking what people are saying, and how then you're putting it into action. It not that you're testing yourself necessarily, but kind of you kind of do have to test yourself when you're being quiet and listening to people and understanding what is this person trying to communicate to me? Because sometimes not everybody is the best communicator and you have to read between the lines. It's our job, I think, also to in the different relationships that we have to understand everybody's communication style. And that, I think, is where we also get into trouble in our relationships too. Even romantic relationships. You know, you you don't understand me. You don't understand what I'm saying. You don't understand. You know, it comes down to that. Well, why are we not understanding each other then? Is it because I'm too tunnel vision right now? It's only what I'm thinking. It's only how I'm interpreting what you're saying, you know, so I could go down this rabbit hole of communication. But again, it's going back to this idea of accepting that not everybody has the same communication style and same language that love languages book. You remember that. How popular that was. That is a different love language. Well, it's the same for communication. And so we have to also, again, remember, we have to meet people where they are, not where we want them to be. Just because we communicate a certain way doesn't mean they do. And that's where the lost in translation things happen.
Ginny Yurich Where did you learn about communication styles?
Florence Romano I would say it was honestly through probably more of my nannying than anything else because I had so many different families that I was working with and so many different parents and children, and everybody was different and I had to learn to speak their language for us to learn to speak the same language while also speaking other once, you know, I think that's okay too. Maybe your language is one way. My language is another way, but we have this common denominator. So it was probably during during my nannying that I realized that my tactics also Jenny, had to change the way that I would discipline. Maybe one child was not the same way I would discipline another ah, the way I would. The relationship I had with one mom was not the same way I had with another mom being my employer. You know, I always say stay what you mean, but don't say it. Me and. That was a big thing I learned as a nanny. That was a common denominator in every family, no matter what. I had to keep that top of mind because there were a lot of dynamics. I wasn't these kids, mother. You know, I wasn't a parent. I wasn't necessarily always allowed to discipline either these kids. I was part of the rules of that whole. So that probably was always a guiding light for me was, you know, you you can be an effective communicator without being mean about it.
Ginny Yurich Boy, did you have to learn some flexibility.
Florence Romano I sure did. And you know what? It helped me in my life in so many different areas, too, because if we take a lot of things personally, you know, people have their personalities and sometimes that doesn't jibe with yours. And you're like, Gosh, that person's so horrible. You know, it's not that they're horrible, it's just that they don't live their life in the same way you do. They don't communicate the same way. They don't express fun the same way that you do. They don't have emotion the same way you do. It's about just being a little kinder, I suppose, and giving people a little bit more compassion that there's a lot going on with people. You know, you can't always judge a book by its cover. Let's go back to the basics, right? You sometimes you need to dig a little deeper.
Ginny Yurich Well, what's interesting is even if there's people that you don't connect with, well, they have people that they connect with, Right. So, you know, they're not horrible to everyone. Some people some people think that they're the best.
Florence Romano So yeah, I.
Ginny Yurich Just about personal connection sometime.
Florence Romano Reference to you know some people like that abrasive personality you know they're going to go and they're going to find someone that has that too and that works for them, you know, And just because it doesn't work for you doesn't mean they're a bad person. And, you know, you don't have to be friends with them. And I guess that's a whole nother rabbit hole we could go down. But like, what do you do when you have to have someone in your life that you don't necessarily get along with, you know, with friends and family and stuff like that? You know, how do you make room for that person and how do you coexist? You know, this is a question I get a lot for moms with their mother in law.
Ginny Yurich As well as in life. That's I mean, that is something I remember being really all the way through life. All the way through life. You're a student, You're in a classroom. I was a teacher for a while. And you think I used to think this? Florence, I would think if that one kid was not in the classroom, just that one. Like, if I could just hand-pick that one student out and put him next door, it would change the whole dynamics of everything. So I think your whole life you have these situations where you're dealing with people that are harder for you to deal with. They may not be hard for someone else to deal with, but they're harder for you to deal. So what advice do you give?
Florence Romano Well, again, it's about figuring out how deep does that relationship really need to be and how much are you letting that person affect you? What are your controllables? You know, we can't control how people behave, but we can control our reaction to them or how much we let them affect us. And that's a lesson that I constantly still have to learn today, too. Even with some family members of mine, you know, sometimes you're like with like a relative and you're just like, you are insufferable, you know, like, I can't stand your politics or I can't stand your whatever it is, you know? Yeah. And, you know, and it just makes it so impossible to find anything redeemable about that person. But then I have to remember that they are who they are. And there are certain things that I'm just not going to engage in. And that might be the way that you have to handle people in your life that you're just going to say, You know what, I'm just not going to go there because there is no there there. And if I go there, it's going to trigger me. So I'm just going to avoid that. I'm I'm going to keep it light and bright and keep it surface level because that's safe. That's my boundary. Yeah. So it's about boundaries and it's about also you trying to control a situation where you maybe feel out of control. But if you can designate how that relationship is going to be, again, by placing that boundary, then you have a better chance of co-existing.
Ginny Yurich And a better chance of dealing with how much they affect you. You have to learn that. That's the thing that really bothers me. And so I got to figure out how to deal with that being or because it's not going to be everything. No, I think the people that rub us the wrong way or even even in our close family relationships that comes up. There's just really only a couple of things I had read one time was a long time ago, and so this might be a little off, but it was talking about marriage and it said something like, Every marriage has ten main problems, so you've got ten things that are a struggle. And it said if you marry someone else, there's going to be ten things. They're going to be different things, right? But there are going to be ten things. And so I thought that was an interesting little tidbit that there are things in you have to learn how to deal with those particular things. In that particular instance.
Florence Romano I just talked about this with someone, you know, there's. I think it's like more of a tick tock trend thing, but okay, there's red flags. We've all heard that term, the red flags. But what about beige flags? And the beige flags are your quirks, are your personality things in life, you know, you date someone and you find out that they eat the same breakfast every single day, or they have to do this and this order or whatever it is. And you're like, Oh, that's so interesting. Why? Why do you do that? You know? And it's not like necessarily a deal breaker for a friendship or a relationship, but it's something that gives you pause. You're like, Well, that's interesting about that person. It's learning about people in a deeper way. And I think those beige flags you're going to have, like you said, those ten things in marriage you're going to have wherever you go. And if you can just accept sometimes that those are the beige flags and those are those are the things about that person that you kind of can't change, that just kind of are there, then that makes it easier for you to maybe move on to the next thing you know, to focus on something else and that relationship or that friendship instead of that. Because you're like, It's not worth my time or energy.
Ginny Yurich Basic. Yes, I you can't change. Maybe so. Maybe sometimes it's even funny. My mom talks about how her dad, my mom and dad have different body clocks, and I read a whole book about how your body clock you have this curve of temperatures and like it affects when you fall asleep and it's really hard to shift your body clock. So my parents have different body clocks and my mom likes to stay up late. My dad likes to go to bed early and get up early. So she'll say they'll be on vacation and she'll wake up, you know, she'll naturally wake up. And my dad's already, like, gone for a run. He's showered, he's dressed, and he's just like sitting there waiting for her.
Florence Romano Yeah, this is gothic, but look how a lot of your parents been married for a long time.
Ginny Yurich Since the seventies. So you have the. Does you deal with the beige flags? I love that. That's interesting. I had not heard that before, so what a cool thing. Okay, so one of the things that you had talked about in this book was you had reached out to your community, social media, just people that are in your circle. And you asked about how people made their villages work. And I don't know if you're going to remember that off the bat or if I'll jog your memory because I've gotten written down. But there were two main things that people said when they had a good village, What they did to make it work.
Florence Romano Well, jog my memory of it because I was going to use a couple examples.
Ginny Yurich Okay. So I'll I'll jog your memory and then maybe you can even give some specific examples because I thought these are really interesting. You said these people responded in. They said they allowed themselves to be inconvenienced if it helps someone else. That was one of the things. And the second one was they offered help without being asked.
Florence Romano They asked yes. So being inconvenienced and offering help without being asked. And I'll give I'll give a couple examples about this. So I think in life, oftentimes most people want to be needed. And even if it inconveniences you, the reward that you get on the other side of it being inconvenienced because you see what it means to somebody, it kind of erases the inconvenience because, you know, I always say that I feel bad that I get so much joy out of helping because it feels so selfish to me sometimes, because I just love I love being able to show up for people. But I always say to my girlfriends, friendship is not about being there when it's convenient. It's about being there when it's inconvenient. And I think that often times in life is the rule of thumb. So on the other side, it inconveniences that reward knowing that you've done something to make a difference in whatever big or small way that is. And then for the second, showing up for someone when they didn't ask for that help, this is going to unearth something else. I think that I don't go into as much detail in the book, but let's talk about it here. We oftentimes want people to read our minds. We oftentimes want people to anticipate our needs without having to ask for it. And when we do get that help without having to ask for it, it's like the air being let out of the tires a little bit. You're kind of like, okay, there's some relief here. And maybe that's because you didn't have to put yourself out there and ask for that help or feel weak or feel like you were inconveniencing someone or whatever it might be. And oftentimes, let me make one caveat to that. The reason we don't want to ask for help is because we're worried that if we do, we have a debt to somebody that we don't know when we're going to be able to pay it.
Ginny Yurich Interesting.
Florence Romano So, you know, it's like, well, if I ask for this help, then I'm going to have to owe them something. And I don't know when in my life I'm going to be able to repay that and I don't want that hanging over my head. And so, you know, that can sometimes stops us. So when showing up for a person without being asked, I want to challenge people to understand that you're doing something that's very unique there. You clearly have listened in some way or paid attention in some way to someone's life that you're able to anticipate a need. And I don't want people to think that if they can't. Do that. That means they're a bad friend or that they're not a good villager. Because that is a very unique quality of a person. And often times you're not able to accomplish that without having a deep relationship with someone or having access to them or their personal information or their personal life in a way where you could do that. So I want people to understand the detail that goes in being able to show up for someone when they're not asking for it. However, I will give the flip side to it. Sometimes that circumstance of showing up for someone, if you don't know the details of their life or don't have an intimate and intimate relationship with them could be as simple as this. When I moved into the house I'm in now, I went and put gift bags in front of everybody's door on my block with my information on it and said, I just moved in and here's my information and I'm so happy to be here. And if you need me, I'm here for you. And, you know, please stop by and say hello to me, you know, so I can get to know you. And what was interesting was so many people came by, of course, to introduce themselves to me. But with that one act of just placing a little gift bag that costs nothing in front of that door. I had a neighbor come over who was a little more elderly and said, you know, it's just nice to be able to talk to someone. Thank you for allowing me the chance to talk to someone. And I know that that was going to lead to that. And that was me going for something for someone that I didn't anticipate, you know, or without them asking for something. So that might be maybe a little bit of a twist on what I'm talking about here. But you just don't know how an act of kindness also is going to open the door for something.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, because sometimes it can be more happenstance, like what you're saying is. So I had a friend, her fridge broke and they were in a hard spot. And the next day, or within a day or two, like a fridge showed up at her house and some delivery truck came with the exact fridge that she needed for the right spacing.
Florence Romano That amazing. I know.
Ginny Yurich I was like, in awe. I was like, I wish I would have thought of that, you know what I'm saying? But that's actually something I couldn't have done. I couldn't have figured out, but somebody knew. So some of and to this day, she has no idea who sent the fridge. And it was like the exact perfect fridge that they needed. So it's I think sometimes you think about things like that, but your point is happenstance, small things, right? You don't necessarily know where that's going to go, and that can be just as deeply impactful. I had this woman on who runs a program called the Growing Kindness Project, and what they do is they just grow flowers in their yard and they give them away. They give them away throughout the summer. And it's just a beautiful project and it's a no strings attached. And I think it helps all of us, like it helps us to be better at receiving small gifts without feeling indebted. And I think because they're just home grown, they don't cost a lot of money that it's an easy thing to accept. But there was a video of this woman on their Instagram, this older woman. She was in a look like she was in a nursing home. And she said, I don't remember the last time I received flowers.
Florence Romano Oh, I can tell you.
Ginny Yurich I know. And it's like but you talk about small gestures and truly, when you go and you leave a gift bag because you're the new person, that is really the backwards way. People should be coming to you as you are the new person. But that doesn't really happen anymore. So you flipped it on its head.
Florence Romano But really, what's the reason I did it too? The reason was because I was new to my block and I knew I needed to find a community and I knew I needed to build relationships. And that was my way of taking control of the situation, saying, well, if I do this, hopefully the ripple effect is that, yeah, this is the, you know, and so it's yeah, I, it's not that I had an agenda, but I also did.
Ginny Yurich But you didn't wait around you didn't wait around for the people to come to you.
Florence Romano No, it was intentional. It was.
Ginny Yurich Intentional. Yeah. And normally we think, well, we're new, so people are going to come over and say hi. People don't do that.
Florence Romano Yeah, they don't do that anymore. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich You have to be the one that does that. And like you said that in the book, you can't wait around. You literally said they don't show up at your door.
Florence Romano They don't just show up at your door.
Ginny Yurich You have to seek them out. I really love the sentence. If you express curiosity about others, you will never be alone. Yes, as a big sentence.
Florence Romano A lot of this work is ripple effects. It's being consciously compassionate. That makes a big difference. You know, I always talk about people. Your people use the term lifestyle, the lifestyle, lifestyle choices. I think it's a lifestyle. You know, that's for me, that that's what my life hopefully is about, is creating that love style and those ripple effects. And just knowing that we are so much more powerful, you know, that we have so. Much more capacity to love than we think, and that there's so many ways to show up for people in life. You know, that doesn't cost money. That takes no time at all. It's just becoming more intentional about relationships and about connectivity.
Ginny Yurich And I got out of this. That part of it is being on the accepting end as well. Because how ironic to say most people want to be needed, but also most people don't want to ask for help. So there is a disconnect here. I had a friend who is book called The Kindred Life, and she said hospitality is also showing up to be fed.
Florence Romano Oh, no. Oh, I love that.
Ginny Yurich Isn't that good?
Florence Romano That's beautiful. Beautiful.
Ginny Yurich So this book, Build Your Village A Guide to Finding Joy in Community in Every Stage of Life. It came out this year in February, so a great one to add. And loneliness is an epidemic, that is for sure. And this one even includes all sorts of action steps. So really cool. Just practical ideas, sending digital care package, different types of things, helping with events, all sorts of things that you could do today, today strengthen your village. And there's more about your stories in there and your grandma. And so just really encouraging things. In the book, you even talk about the differences. Well, really, we're running out of time here, but this really relates in your talk about the differences between your grandma's. So you were talking about Brandy, Mitzi and Nana.
Florence Romano Yourself, too? Yeah, I had my my Nana was the one that lived with us, my Italian grandmother that I'm named after. And then my grandma Mitzi, who was actually my step grandmother, I never knew my dad's biological mom. She died years and years and years before I was born. But my Italian grandmother was your quintessential, you know, stuff. You full of food, sat on her lap, loved you with hugs and kisses. And my granny Mitzi was a stylish, you know, tall drink of water socialite who really didn't like children. But if you talk to her like an adult, that she wanted everything to do with you, and I learned things from both. But again, accepting who they were, not who I wanted them to be.
Ginny Yurich I love it a lot in this book. We always end our podcast with the same question. I have found a majority of my villagers outside just having some small experiences together. Very simple things. What is a favorite experience from your childhood that was outside?
Florence Romano We used to play this game called Chalk Town. My next door neighbors and I would go on our driveways and we would create a whole town out of chalk. I owned a jewelry store and a shoe store and all sorts of things. And we would go each driveway and we would go to each town and in our cul de sac we would actually set up traffic lights and stops and on our bikes we would ride through the town. And it was hours and hours and hours and days and weeks and full of fun. And when it rained, we would rebuild the town. So it was the best. And I have to tell you that any neighbor of mine, when we reconnect and I see them, everyone brings up Chalk Town.
Ginny Yurich You've been creating villages since you were a kid. How cool is that? Well, Florence, thank you for your time. Love what you're doing. It's so encouraging. Just a lot of practical things that people can learn and to take away. So thanks for being here with us.
Florence Romano Thank you, Ginny. It was joyful.
