About 20 miles north of our hometown of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania lies the tiny town of Roseto, Pennsylvania.  Built on the side of a hill by Italian immigrants from Roseto, Italy in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, this town is the setting for the first vignette within Malcom Gladwell’s widely read book Outliers: The Story of Success.

Back in the 1950’s, researchers noted something peculiar about Roseto.  Residents of this tiny town had abnormally low rates of heart disease, no instances of peptic ulcers and essentially zero reported deaths by suicide.

The Magic of Roseto, PA

First, the researchers theorized that the Rosettans must have been making healthier choices in terms of diet and exercise than other people living in the United States at that time.  However, they quickly discovered that there were no notable differences here.  The people of Roseto were:

• Cooking with lard oil versus the much healthier olive oil used by their Italian ancestors.
• Consuming large quantities of processed foods and sweets.
• Smoking cigarettes at the same high rates as the US population as a whole.
• Struggling with high levels of obesity.

Having discounted healthy lifestyle choices, researchers next moved on to exploring if there was some genetic explanation for these different medical outcomes.  The research team looked at the incidence of health issues among ancestors of immigrants from Roseto, Italy who had settled elsewhere in the United States.  These people had much higher rates of heart disease and health problems than did the residents of Roseto, PA.  As a result, this explanation was thrown out as well.

The next line of thinking was that there must have been something magical about this region of Eastern Pennsylvania that was resulting in these favorable health results.  Researchers audited the rates of heart disease and other health issues in the two closest neighboring towns of Bangor and Nazareth. They were dumbfounded when they discovered that the rates of heart disease and other major health problems were roughly triple that of little Roseto.

With no other theories available to explain these amazing differences, researchers began to spend hours simply observing how the people of Roseto lived.  They observed that unlike the neighboring towns, the Rosettans were an extremely tight knit community with many multi-generational families living under one roof, 22 separate civic organizations, and a culture that treated all members of the community with respect, regardless of their occupation or accumulated wealth.

As a result, the medical researchers begrudgingly concluded that the sense of community and support network created by the people of Roseto was the primary driver behind their extraordinary health.

Create Your Own Success Network

Fast forward to today and what this means to you as you pursue your Custom Built Life.™  Does this mean that you should go out there and slug down the salami and soft drinks in between bouts of chain smoking while you’re working to create the life you want to live?  Of course not!

But it does point out the importance of putting this kind of support network or success network in place for yourself as you seek to make these positive changes in your life.  You can:

• Discuss your goals and aspirations with your spouse and come to an agreement on what you can pursue together and what you’ll pursue independently.
• Ask your kids for more help taking care of things around the house so that you can spend more time creating the life you have always wanted to live.
• Find an “Accountability Buddy” to give you support and encouragement when you hit the inevitable bumps in the road that are a part of this journey.
• Find like-minded online communities of people who are also interested in this subject and will not judge you for creating rules that work for you rather than accepting the rules that everyone else is following.

Your Assignment

Take a few minutes this week to decide how you’ll begin to create or enhance your success network.  It will be good for your health, it will help you achieve your goals, and ultimately, it will help you create your Custom Built Life!

Tell us your stories on how you are creating and/or using success networks to help you achieve your goals.