Roots Go Deep

And I'll tell you a lot of it had to do also with just the approach my parents took. Whenever we moved and they probably knew we were going to be moving often, but they never acted like we were. When we landed wherever we landed, roots went deep. We got involved immediately. Mom got involved immediately. We know we did. So, it was a okay we're grounded. I never felt ungrounded like, okay, we're here for a little bit, but don't invest, don't make friends don't bother because we're going to be out of here soon. I never had that view. Every time we moved, it was ripping out roots. And I have a lot of hacks for that which could be a separate, separate book, but it's all about meeting people and getting engaged. So, one of the things like wherever we moved, we always know our neighbors. And it's funny because many places we moved it's then because of us that the other neighbors actually meet each other.

That’s interesting.

Yeah. It really is. Most people these days don't actually know their neighbors. But we do. And so what we would do is literally when you move in, everything's in boxes, right? People expect things to be in boxes. So, I would borrow stuff, knock on door, knock, knock, “Hi, I'm Shellye Archambeau we just moved in down here, do you have a screwdriver?” and they say, “Oh, let me go look.” And they give me a screwdriver. Okay, great, got a screwdriver, go keep the screwdriver, whether I needed one or not, bring it back a couple days later. Knock, knock, knock. “Hi, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And then you have a chance to what strike up a conversation.” So, we always met our neighbors and then one of the other things we would do to set roots is we'd have a party. Typically within 30 to 60 days of moving in, we'd have a party. And the reason we had a party was it also became, see I am very goal-oriented and strategic.

Okay, this is very strategic, even the parties.

Because the reason we did it were two folds, one, it made us get everything out of boxes. So, we weren't sitting there with boxes a year later. No everything can’t be in boxes because we need art on the wall, we're having a party. You got to put all this stuff up. And then second we'd invite every people we met. So, this first party would always be super eclectic. We've had parties where the UPS person is invited. I mean, what a thing, invited people. I mean, we just invited whoever. And why do we do that? Because some of those people we were going to click with and typically when you invite people over, not COVID. But when you invite people over, they'd invite you to their house or just some function or think about you right as reciprocate and even if it's only 20% that got the social life going.