Episode 035: Building Your Village Creating The Support System Everyone Needs with Florence Ann Romano

Purpose Driven Success with Mo Salami

Episode 035: Building Your Village Creating The Support System Everyone Needs with Florence Ann Romano

In a world where loneliness, burnout, and disconnection are at record highs, how do we build the support systems we truly need?

In this episode of Purpose Driven Success with Mo Salami, Florence Ann Romano -author of Build Your Village- shares why meaningful relationships are essential for personal fulfilment, resilience, and long-term success. 

We explore Florence Ann's Six Villagers framework, the hidden loneliness many high achievers experience, the power of asking for help, and practical ways to create community at any stage of life.

If you've ever felt disconnected despite having people around you, this conversation offers a roadmap for building deeper connection, stronger relationships, and a life filled with belonging.

Ready to perform at your highest level predictably and sustainably?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Maya Angelou's quote: People forget what you said, what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. I think waking up every day and concentrating on how you make people feel and also how you make yourself feel is very important. I want people to understand that they're worthy of this. You are worthy of love. You are worthy of being part of something. And that I think oftentimes when it comes to village, people think that if I wasn't born into it, then I'm a goner. I'm here to encourage you to say you can build it for yourself. I want to empower you to say no. You get to choose at a certain point.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Every week we dive into real conversations with high achieving founders and leaders, uncovering the mindsets, strategies, and takeaways that help you define and achieve success on your own terms. I first met today's guest a few years ago when we were in the same mastermind. And I was just sharing with her off the call that whenever I think of her name, I remember one thing she said to me, which was always speak in sound bites. Clearly, it worked because I remembered it all of this time, and we're in for a pretty amazing conversation today. We're in a time where loneliness, burnout, and disconnection are at record highs. And this conversation is about how to actually build the support system that everybody needs. And this is really important for the bigger picture of aligned living in addition to aligned success, which we talk about on this podcast. Florence Anne Romano is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, and she's known for her ability to cultivate meaningful connections. She's passionate about helping others create their own community and to be seen, heard, and understood. As an acclaimed author, Florence Anne's insights are captured in her book Build Your Village: A Guide to Finding Joy and Community in Every Stage of Life Beyond Words. The book's been celebrated as a top 10 in its category. Florenceanne's expertise and charismatic delivery have earned her features across over 900 national and local media outlets, including Sherry, ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox TV affiliates, Home and Family, Forbes magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and so much more. Florence Sann is also currently a regular expert on over 10 national TV affiliates across the United States. Florence Sann, welcome to Purpose Driven Success.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Oh Mo, thank you for such a warm welcome. I am always so happy to see you. And I, you know, I was so happy that we were going to get to reconnect because when I first met you in that mastermind, I remember thinking to myself, oh my gosh, I could just listen to him talk forever. So it's not surprising you have a podcast. I'm so, so proud of you.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Now that you've said that, I remember something else as well. You did say that as well. You said with that accent to start a podcast. So there you go. Florence, your message is so simple, it's so powerful. Build your village and let love in. So I'm gonna start with your story in your way before we get into any ideas and frameworks. When you look back at your own experiences, how did they shape your understanding of connection and belonging and what it truly means to have a village?

SPEAKER_01 3:54

It's funny because most people don't know this about me, but I was a nanny for over 15 years in my life. And this is many, many moons ago. But when I was a nanny, I had a very interesting perspective on families because I was inside these walls, intimately involved in families, intimately involved with the dynamics. And you see a lot, you hear a lot, you observe a lot. I've always been a naturally curious person about relationships. But as a nanny, I would say it continued to pique that curiosity for me as I worked for more and more people. And then when my time came to retire from being a nanny, I always use the Mary Poppins line. I stay until the wind changes. And the wind changes for a lot of reasons in life. And I moved on from that and ended up having a digital content company for many years. But while I was building that digital content company that was focused on storytelling from an ethos perspective, a give back perspective, I had decided to write a children's book talking about why people other than parents are taking care of children and why that's so important in our world today. Because the statistic at the time, Mo was that over 65% of families in America had childcare in some sort of way. So we were seeing something that was cultural, not a trend. And so I started doing a ton of media after my book came out about that subject matter, but far beyond it. And then years later, COVID hit. And I would hear people bemoan all the time online or on the phone with me, or in any way that we were connecting that was not with people in person then. People would say, Well, where's this village? This village that people talk about. Is there a phone number to call, or do people just show up at your front door ready to help you? And during COVID, it was the first time, not the first time, but the first time in a long time, at least in my lifetime, that I felt I was experiencing something on a global level that everyone could understand. And everyone could understand what it felt like to lose their support systems because we couldn't be together. You couldn't have the outside help. You couldn't have childcare. You couldn't even have your own family coming over for goodness sakes. So that led me to thinking, well, it's time to answer the question. What is a village? Where is this village that people are talking about? What's the roadmap for it? And I wanted to be the one that wrote the book about the roadmap to the village and also put an emphasis on the fact that the proverb is wonderful. It takes a village to raise a child. That's all fine and dandy, but I like to chop it in half. It takes a village, period. Because whether or not you have children, it shouldn't matter. You deserve a village, regardless of how you design your life. So I want it to be inclusive.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Obviously, today you talk about the power of community. Looking back, was there ever a version of Florence Anne who believed she had to carry everything by herself? You know, what did success look like to you before you understood the value of having a village?

SPEAKER_01 7:05

And you know, it's funny. I feel like I have struggled with the very things that I've become an expert about. And I always like to mention that because people use this term, expert, and you know, they're you're a teacher and this way. And the only way you become that way is if you fail, fail, fail. Fall down, don't do it well, make mistakes. I still make mistakes with this. I'm the first one to tell you that you need to ask for help, right? That we're not supposed to live this life alone. We're meant for people. But I, in my own life, will go to reach for my phone and be like, I'm not gonna bother my friend with this today. I'm not even taking my own advice. So this is a practice. This is a mentality that you really need to like concentrate on, focus on. And so, yes, there have been many times in my life where I have not reached out for that help. Even more recently, I'll give you a quick story. I had a fight with a friend, basically. And I was on the receiving end of things that felt very hurtful. And I didn't really know what to do with it, all these feelings inside of me. And I called my best friend, and I was like, oh, I'm having a really rough time here. And I just start getting all choked up. And I said, uh, uh, can I just come over? Because she lives just a couple of blocks from me. She's like, Yes. So she's like, of course, come over. So I went over, I sat down on her couch and I just cried and I just let it all hang out and I just really fell apart. And she said to me, I hate to see you like this, but I have to tell you that for the longest time in our friendship, I always felt like it was you taking care of me. And now I feel like it's finally reciprocal, like I can finally show up for you. And in that moment, I realized that I was really doing a disservice to my friends because no one wants to feel like they're the charity case all the time, that I'm always the one helping them, but they're not allowed to access me and feel purposeful. The name of your podcast, purpose. I love that word. And so, yes, I struggle with this. And this was a recent story. This is just a few months ago. So, yes, I'm in the same boat as a lot of you, and I have to make sure I'm constantly going to that mental gym in order to really lean into what I am talking about.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Wow, wow, wow. And similarly, many high achievers they look successful on the outside, but on the inside, maybe they feel disconnected. Did you ever experience that a season where your life looked really full on the outside, but then your village felt empty?

SPEAKER_01 9:59

I would say that I can bring myself back to COVID when I was living in the city, and I now live back in my hometown. I moved back to my hometown about five years ago, but I lived in, I'm from Chicago, and I lived in the city proper for 15 years. And COVID hit, and I remember looking out my window, looking at the Lake Michigan, Illinois River, and there was this fog across the water, and everything was eerily quiet. And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, I'm I'm lonely. I'm like palpably lonely. And what did I want to do to change that? Because I had friends, I had family. I looked like I had a very full life, but I felt very isolated downtown. And all my friends had gotten married, had children. I'm single and never been married, don't have children. And I felt disconnected. And I felt, what can I do to reconnect myself or connect myself in general? And then, long story short, I ended up moving back to my hometown. And I'm so happy being here now around my friends and family. And it definitely did solve a majority of that issue. But as time goes on, I also see the ebbs and flows of my relationships and my friendships where I feel lonely even though I'm surrounded by a lot of people. And I usually come to the conclusion that I'm spending too much time doing things that don't bring me joy instead of concentrating on things that do, which is what leads to that, those feelings of loneliness.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Is it things that don't bring you joy or being around people that don't bring you joy or like a mixture of the two?

SPEAKER_01 11:40

I love that question. It's a mixture of the two, I would say that you feel like sometimes your life is just that hamster wheel and you're just trying to, you know, catch your tail, basically. And we're not meant to live that way. We're not meant to just work. You know, we are meant to have play and relaxation and things that fill us up. So it can be that. It can be that where I get a little too obsessed maybe with the work side of things. But also, it can be friend-related, where I may be spending time with friends that aren't challenging me the way I want to be challenged or aren't there for me in the ways that I wish they were. And that leads me to also, you know, what I write about in my book is evaluating your friendships and seeing if the people that you've cast into these roles are correctly cast. Are they set up for success? And maybe the reason you feel like your relationships are a little clunky is because they've changed, you've changed, the seasons of your life have changed, it's not aligned, and you need to make some adjustments, some recalibration. So I go through this evaluation myself all the time, too, within my own personal relationships.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Your core message of build your village, let love in, obviously, it's a very noble message, and it's a simple message. But what would you say to the person that listens to that message and finds it terrifying?

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

In terms of letting people in because they're so used to just doing it their way.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Well, I'd like to ask the question why are you so afraid to be vulnerable? Why are you afraid to let people in? I can answer that question for you in my own life. I was raised in an old school Italian family. My grandparents lived with us growing up. We were a multi-generational household. It was the time of my life. I loved it. But there was stuff still there. You know, my relationship with my father was a very complicated one, not a healthy one. And old school Italian, you don't air your dirty laundry, really. And I think that sometimes precluded me from trusting people or telling people how I was really feeling. And so I understand what it feels like to be afraid to be vulnerable and to be afraid to ask for help. My caveat to that is I'm not telling you to go out there and ask everyone for help or to confide in everyone or to trust in everyone. That is where discernment comes in. You're not supposed to go and trust everybody. That is a small group of people, or maybe even one person who's your ride or die in life. So if you're afraid to do that, I would ask yourself why, where is that coming from? Kind of diagnose that within yourself and then realize that asking for that help is going to help eradicate that issue of the loneliness epidemic that we have in this country. I'm not asking you to find 20 people to be this person that you go to. I'm asking you to find one, one person that you can do this with. And that is going to have a ripple effect on your life.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Such a great point, Florence. And in terms of the village, on average, could we presuppose that your village is three to four, five people, eight people, in general, for the listener hearing this for the first time, assuming that it's too much to put it all on one person, if I assume that, or parts, how many are in a village?

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Well, one disclaimer I want to make about that. I'm not telling you just to have the one person. I'm saying there's the one person that you would confide in in that deep way. But of course, you're not going to put all of your hopes and dreams and needs on one person. I'm just saying, and when we get into the archetypes, it will make more sense. But the village itself, there's not a magic number. The book that I wrote, Build Your Village, I created six archetypes of people. And the point of that is I'm a visual learner, like a lot of people. And if you picture these six people as perhaps like cylinders, like you're in a science lab. And I'll briefly say them and then Mo will get into it. But the six villagers that I created are the accepting, dependable, cheerleader, communicator, organizer, and healer. And I'm going to say that quickly and then we'll dive more deeply. But assign those words to each six of those cylinders. And inside those cylinders, you're going to have a volume, just like liquid, liquid volume. And maybe you're going to be filled up to the brim with the accepting villager. Maybe you're halfway full on the cheerleader. Maybe you've got maybe just the tiniest bit of liquid in the healer one. Well, that liquid reflects and refers to the amount of people. You could have 10 accepting people, five communicators, one healer, three organizers. I don't care about the number that you have in your life. I just care that you're looking at this six and saying, okay, I have at least one person in each of these six. And to me, that feels fully formed. But maybe you're in a place in your life, a season in your life where you have four out of the six and you say, Florence, you know, I feel good. I feel satiated. Then you know what? Great. You don't need those other two right now. But maybe there's going to come a time in your life where you will. Maybe you're going to go through a divorce or a breakup or a death in the family. And all of a sudden, you're going to need that healer villager or you're going to need that organizer villager who's going to create a meal train for you and your family to step in when you're in crisis. It's going to ebb and flow. And that's the point is I don't want people to get stuck on a number. I want you to use these six archetypes to help evaluate the health of your social ecosystem.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

That is really, really outstanding. And it sounds like is it something where you can be one of the archetypes yourself, or is it always something you'd want? Like, could could you be a village member inside of one of the archetypes, almost self-reflecting? Or are all six archetypes external facing?

SPEAKER_01 18:04

I love that question. You're right inside my brain, Mo. So that's the point of this work, is it's not just about me, me, me, what do I need? You also need to be thinking about how do I show up in other people's villages? Because we're supposed to live a life taking care of each other, serving one another. And so, in order for you to know thyself, and in order for you to be able to show up for other people, you're going to need to do this work as well, evaluating how you present. And what's funny is I have people who use my book in book clubs. And they'll tell me that they'll do a game while they're sitting there together saying, tell me which villager you think I am. And then, you know, vice versa, all of that. And it's so funny to watch everybody answer that question. And where you may think that you're someone's accepting villager, they actually define you as their communicator. Or where you think maybe I'm none of these people to this friend, that friend may say to you, Oh my gosh, you are definitely my dependable villager. It's really neat to explore that in a group setting, especially with people that are your friends, because you're kind of holding a mirror up to one another. And I don't know that everyone's ready to see what's in that mirror.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

In a village, you have different personalities, different intentions, even if they mean well. How do we handle if a villager is probably not for the best? Either you've come to realize it, or there's been a misselection. Is it just a case, as we say, like use a long spoon, like you'd eat together, but use a really long spoon, so to speak? Or is it a case of evicting them? How would we deal with that scenario? Given that some villagers stay in your life and they just have to.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Well, two things. You want to see if the person's sitting in the right seat. Maybe you cast them into a role early on and they're just they're not succeeding in that role. You've made them your accepting villager. This person's the non-judgmental one in your life, and you can confide in them. Well, maybe they've betrayed you in some sort of way. Maybe they've told some of your secrets to like another friend in the group, and you find out about it, and you're like, oh, this changes how I feel about them. Maybe it doesn't make them a bad person. Maybe you can forgive it, maybe you can move on from it, but maybe you're gonna take her or him and move them into a different villager role because they're not the person that you can confide in, but they are someone you can depend on to get things done or delegate to. So you're going to recast them into a role. So you can preserve a relationship with them, but they're just gonna be in a different bucket. Now, if the relationship is not able to be preserved or repaired, then you can fire people from your village. I'm gonna say, you know, kind of it bluntly like that. And how do you do that? How do you go about firing someone from your village? Sometimes it happens on its own. Sometimes the person just naturally disappears because you were the one putting all the effort in. And once you stop putting the effort in, off they go. And then, okay, great, done. Or sometimes it's a conversation. Sometimes you may have to sit down and have a difficult exchange of words. I always say you can say what you mean, but not say it mean. And so make sure you are leaving that conversation with as much grace and compassion as you can. And how you have that conversation should take pause. You should consider how you're going to talk to this person and what your end goal is. If your end goal is to leave that friendship, how can you do that in a way, like I said, that is going to be done with grace and compassion?

SPEAKER_00 21:51

Knowing who you are, knowing your background, clearly you're someone that's success driven. How did your definition evolve? From success, external achievement, you know, I'm presupposing here to something that's more rooted in community and purpose and belonging. What was that evolution for you?

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Well, success, I think, is a subjective term. And I talked about that recently, actually, with a member of my team. And I said, I don't like necessarily concentrating on a demographic that is described that way. I talk a lot to independent, successful women. And I said, I don't know, I'm I'm hung up on this word. And someone said to me, but that is up for everyone else to decide what their version of success looks like. I may define my own success a certain way, but that's not someone else's definition of it. And I love that reframe. And I think you probably work with people like that too, Mo, where you're not telling them what the definition of success is. You're asking them, what does that look like for you? And for me and my life, that has changed over time. Like you said, it's an evolution. I thought I was going to be a young girl getting married and having kids. And here I am at 40, never married, never had kids. I never thought that that was going to be the case. In my mind, it was success if I got married and had children. It took a long time for me to realize that I was really putting myself through so much shame and blame and embarrassment and um sadness, you know, which of course you you can feel all your feelings, but I was I was swimming in it for far too long because I felt like I had failed in some way because I hadn't done those things. Here I am still not having done those things, but there's things that I would like to do in that way. I would like those things to happen, but I've learned where faith and timing all come into it. So that's a long-winded way of saying my definition of all of these things have changed. And I don't think people probably expected me to answer that talking about my personal life in terms of marital status or children, but success is not always measured by the money that you make or the career title that you have.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

And that's definitely the foundation this podcast is built on just your own definition of success. And I always say that a lot of times people are quote unquote successful and miserable because it's someone else's definition. Sometimes we think we're successful when in reality it's stressful. You've spent a lot of years teaching people how to build their villages. When in your life did you need your village the most? And what happened for you because people showed up for you in that moment?

SPEAKER_01 24:52

When I was 35, I decided to freeze my eggs. I'm glad that I actually just talked about my marital status because now this is a nice through line. When I was 35, I froze my eggs because I had made myself a promise when I was 30 at my 30th birthday party. Actually, it was a joint birthday party with one of my best girlfriends. And I was standing on this rooftop in Chicago and I was looking out at this beautiful city, and I'd had maybe a couple cocktails, Mo. And I said out loud to her, if by the time I'm 35, I have not gotten married and have had children, I'm gonna freeze my eggs. So five years later, I still wasn't married, had no children. I said, Oh, time to make good on that promise, Florence Ann. So I did. I did go through IVF a few different rounds. I was deciding whether or not I wanted to be a single mom by choice. If I wanted to create embryos with donor sperm, I did end up doing that. I also did a retrieval where I have eggs that are not fertilized in case I do get married and want to fertilize them with my husband. So I did everything. I did all of it. But while I was going through this, it was very trying. My hormones were raging, my mind was foggy, I was very emotional. I it was a very lonely time for me, even though I was surrounded by people because it's you and your body. And it's only you that can get yourself through it, even though you have everyone that loves you around you. And I am the type of person where I take my friendship seriously. I love to be the one that shows up, the one that you call in a crisis, the one you call when your water breaks, you need to be taken to the hospital, the one that you call that I love to be that person. And at that time in my life, I was really unable to show up for people the way I used to because I was so I was concentrated so much on this very delicate time. And I needed to let people take care of me. I needed to let people show up at my house and sit with me on the couch and just chat through how I was feeling, or send me, you know, a comfy blanket in the mail and accept it with love. Cozy socks that people would drop off saying, wear these on the day of your egg retrieval. I'm thinking of you. It was so hard for me, Mo. It was so hard for me to let people care for me like that because I like to be the caretaker. But it taught me a lot. It taught me a lot. And it's funny that I had to learn that lesson again with my friend that I mentioned at the top of the show, who I showed up at her house and she said, Finally, I feel like I'm purposeful in your life. Clearly, I didn't learn the lesson all the, you know, then, and I needed to learn it again, that I needed to let people in. But that was a very, very hard time in my life. But it also proved to me the concept that we're discussing today, which is where these seasons happen, and you have to be okay knowing that you may not always be able to be the person that you want to be in other people's villages, and sometimes it's going to be about how they can show up for you.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Wow. Thanks for sharing that. So let's say someone's listening to this and they just feel unsupported today as we're listening to this. What's the first exercise that they would do to assess the health of their village? You know, they may have tons of people around them and feel isolated, as you mentioned before.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

I want you to go through the archetypes that we mentioned. I want you to read the definitions of them and figure out if you can cast the people in your life into those roles. And then once you do that and you step back, you go, okay, well, hmm, I seem to be missing a few people here. And maybe that's why I'm going to sleep with this heaviness in my heart, waking up with it too, feeling unfulfilled, feeling unseen, unheard, you know, misunderstood. Um, and maybe that's where the gaps are. So casting your people in your life, the low-hanging fruit right now that you have into these roles is gonna help reveal where the gaps are. And then that's where you start to get surgical, where the gaps are, and then casting people specifically for those roles if you feel like that's where they're missing.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Right. So you gave the scenario where you move from Chicago to your hometown.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Yes, which is only about 30 minutes outside the city.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

But even still, but you move from Chicago to your hometown. Now, I guess what I'm trying to ask is if there are scenarios where one has to rebuild their village, yes. Do you sort of use Zoom and whatnot and just keep your original village, the phone and Zoom? Or is it more like a touch and see type thing, meeting for coffees and whatnot? How does one go about rebuilding their village?

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Rebuilding your village happens multiple times in your life sometimes. Like I'd mentioned before, maybe there's a divorce. And sometimes in divorce, especially between a man and a woman, the man seems to lose more of the social circle than the woman does, because the woman usually is the one in charge of the calendar. And I can tell you this from personal experience. My parents are divorced. My parents have been divorced for six years. They were married for 40, 4-0. And my dad said that that was probably one of the hardest parts of the divorce, other than, you know, losing my mom, was losing a lot of his friendships. He didn't realize he depended on my mom for those friendships. And so he has had to rebuild his village, but he's in his 70s. It's not easy at his age to do that. He doesn't want to put in the effort that it takes to do that. Sometimes I feel like people feel that friendship is more for the young. And so if you are rebuilding your life and it's not a divorce situation, let's say you move to an entirely different city. One of my best girlfriends from college moved from Chicago to Houston, Texas. And she called me when she got there and she said, How do I do this? I don't know a soul here, you know. And I miss everybody. I miss my whole life there. All my cousins, all my friends were in Chicago. Gave her a lot of credit for, you know, doing the right thing for her family. Her husband needed to move there for his job. And it took her a while to build the village that she has now, but she put herself out there. I said, You need to go and you need to join things at your kids' school. You need to get involved with the PTA. You need to go and have couples dinners with your husband, with people that work at the same company as his and start to form relationships with those wives. You know, you need to go to your neighbors and drop off a little gift and say, hey, we just moved. Here's my phone number, my email address. I'd love to get together. And then you need to put in the effort. That's the hardest part, I think, Mo for people when it comes to this work is none of this is going to happen without you putting the effort into it. So I always say to people, I can give you all these directions. And I do. I wrote a whole book about it, but I can't make you get in the car and drive there. You have to do it for yourself. So you have to ask yourself, how badly do I want this? How badly do I want this to change? And if you do, then the tools are there for you. But so often, Mo, so often people will complain to me about the fact that they don't have this village, they don't have these people, but they don't want to put the work into actually finding them because that's what? Vulnerability. That's putting yourself out there. That is not comfortable for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

That is such an important distinction, really being part of the process and putting yourself out there for others and having that reciprocity. That's really a great distinction, Florence Anne. You encourage people to ask for help in general. You know, let's be interdependent versus independent. What's the hardest example of help that you've had to reach out to someone for?

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Oh, the hardest example. Uh I would say that. Well, I go to go back to the story with one of my best friends I told you about when I showed up at her house. That was very difficult for me because the issue I was having with the other friend, I felt so embarrassed about the criticism that that friend was making toward me. I didn't want to say it out loud. And yeah, even now, even months later, after that, it's hard for me to put myself back on her couch because I can feel my stomach kind of churn a bit. Because you don't want to admit anything. And not that I was admitting I had done anything necessarily wrong, but the criticism that was being hurled toward me embarrassed me. And I couldn't believe that I was on the receiving end of something like that. And saying it out loud, even though this person is one of my best friends in the world, I still had a hard time being vulnerable. That's very recent, very recent. And so I want people out there to understand, you know, look, that was just a few months ago for me. I'm not saying, oh, this was 15 years ago, and I've never had this problem since then, having a problem asking for help or revealing something. No, I still have to, you know, sharpen my teeth the same way everybody else does.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

I like that so much that it to make clear that it's a continuous process. Right. And even someone like yourself that teaches the process and you literally taught it and teach it nationwide and internationally, it's still a continuum even for yourself. Again, we want to create a transformation from this conversation. And you mentioned going to the exercises, looking at different archetypes. If someone's listening to this and they feel stuck, they feel lonely, they feel disconnected, right? What's a question? It might even be a hard question for themselves, but what's a question that they should be asking themselves?

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Well, it's not as much a question as I want to give you a directive, I want to give you a prompt. When people feel like they literally have no idea how to start this, what to do, where to go, they are starting from scratch. My best advice is philanthropy. I always say that if you don't know how to connect, if you are feeling that disconnection, that you need to look at what makes your heart flutter, what's important to you. Throw it into Google, see what exists in your community where you can give back. It's not writing a massive check. It's where can you get your hands dirty? Where can you show up somewhere that you can be helpful, where you can serve? Because if you do that, then all of a sudden you're gonna be in a group of people that are like-minded, have similar values. And without you tapping someone on the shoulder saying, Hey, do you want to be my friend? you're gonna be in an environment that's not very threatening, that you're probably going to start creating relationships naturally because you're both there and you already have something in common. So if you feel like right now you do not know what to do, you do not know the first step to take. I just gave you your first step.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

That is such a powerful first step as well. You know, serve. Obviously, it's not with the intention of reciprocity, like whole trading, yes, but serve, serve, serve, serve, serve. You're in that environment, it comes back. It's such a great distinction. Thank you for that. So we're way in the future, 20 years from now. Is 20 years way in the future, really? Feel short when people reflect on your work, yeah, and your message, and what do you want them to remember? Not even so much about building a village, but how to live a meaningful life that's interdependent versus independent and not feeling uh guilty about it. Like it's it's fine not to try and do this yourself. How would you like to be remembered and your people to reflect on your work given that?

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Oh, a couple things. I think I'd like to be remembered as a person that knew how to love. If someone just said that about me in a eulogy, that would make me very happy that she knew how to love. Maya Angelou's quote, people forget what you said, what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. I think waking up every day and and concentrating on how you make people feel, and also how you make yourself feel is very important. And third, you mentioned this, but I want to expand on it more. You talked about that guilt. I want people to understand that they're worthy of this. You are worthy of love, you are worthy of being part of something, and that it's not a failure if you need to ask for that help. And that I think oftentimes when it comes to village, people think that if I wasn't born into it, then I'm a goner. I'm here to encourage you to say, you can build it for yourself. I want to empower you to say no, you get to choose at a certain point. And so making yourself the hero in this scenario, you know, that you can control this, that you can take some of your power back, maybe when you feel like you've lost some of it, that's all very important to me. So I hope in 20 years, if my work is remembered, it is that people felt like no matter what they were born into, they were worthy of finding connection.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

That is so outstanding, Florence Anne. And I really love the way that using your example, you've grown up in a multi-how did you phrase it? Multi-generational multi-generational household. And then sometimes we grow up and we go, oh, I grew up in a multi-generational household, meaning surrounded just by love and by people and just everyone.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

And then you've given this formula to go, well, you can actually form a multi-generational village, if you will, and have all of that and more, even still. And you've given us the frameworks and the formula. So that is so outstanding here. If someone wants to learn more about you, read your book, which I recommend, by the way. How do we now find out more about you? Would you say?

SPEAKER_01 39:18

My website, Florenceanne.com. Everything and more that we talked about is available there. But I like to think of myself as your virtual village. So if you find me on social media, Florence Romano, DM me. I answer every DM. And if you need someone to talk to and figure out what to do to take your first step, I am so happy to be that person virtually for you. So please do reach out.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Awesome. Florence, it's been so outstanding having you as a guest here on Purpose Driven Success. And we look forward to following your work and seeing where you take it even further. It's so outstanding.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

Thank you, Mo. Well, Ditto, right back at you. Can't wait to see the places you'll go.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

Awesome. All the best. Ciao.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

You too. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

Thank you for listening to Purpose Driven Success with Mo Salami. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review. It's one of the best ways to help others discover the show. You can find links and resources and show notes at our website. And if today's episode inspired you, check out one of our other insight-filled, value-packed episodes. Next week we'll have another amazing guest, so stay tuned for even more real stories and actionable insights. Work on your mindset, work on your skill set, and always move in the direction of the result you want before you see the result you want. And until next time, do the best you can consistently. Ciao.