Joanne Lockwoodhost
Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I am your host. TheInclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I will be interviewing anumber of amazing people and simply having a conversation around the subject ofinclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better place for everyone tothrive in. If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do dropme a line to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.ukand that'syou be able to catch up with all of the episodes on itunes, Spotify andall the usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decafand let's get going. Today isepisode six with the title It's all about acceptanceand authenticity in order to be able to achieve.I have the absolute honour and privilege to be joinedby Michael Jarasi. I met Michaelrandomly on LinkedIn, like you do, and Michael describedhimself as a transformational life coach. So I asked Michaelto tell me about his superpower and he said he's an active listenerand full of compassion. So hello, Michael,welcome to the show. Lovely to be here, joanne, I'm excited
Michael Cerasiguest
to chat to you today. So tell,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
why is it all about acceptance and authenticity inorder to be able to achieve? Well, actually, for me, I believe
Michael Cerasiguest
this is my philosophy when working with clients. I call it AAA.It's an easy abbreviation to remember. You thinkof your AAA batteries, and here today, I hopeto kind of supercharge people's journey intosuccess and achieving. Wow. AAA
Joanne Lockwoodhost
batteries. So they're fully rechargeable. Soyou pop on charge overnight or a good session with you and that charges people'sbatteries run up again. That's right. And I think it's important
Michael Cerasiguest
to know your own values, to be able to navigatesuccess and know which direction to go in.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
So how does your superpower of yourlistening compassion come into that, to play inthat? Well, when I tell people my superpower is active
Michael Cerasiguest
listening, a lot of people think, oh, my God, listening is so easy, anyone cando that. But in actual fact,it takes a lot of concentration to listen to someoneproperly, especially not giving them advice.A lot of family members will think that they're listening to you, but in actualfact tell you what to do. So Ithink it's important to be able to take whatsomeone's saying and let them have the opportunityto make the decisions themselves. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
that's a really good point. I know myself sometimes whenI'm zoned out, I've got my black mirror in my hand, I'm playingwith my phone, my mind's elsewhere and someone's trying to talk to me. I knowmyself that sometimes I'm not giving people that respect oflistening. And not only I'm not listening, I'm not hearing them either,I'm not hearing their words. So what sort of techniques have youlearned in order to help yourself become an active listener? I
Michael Cerasiguest
think today in the modern world, we have so many distractions andthat could be your phone, it could be the television, so I have toswitch everything off. I dedicate thatspecific time to my clients and ensure thatI'm completely concentrated on the conversation. Andwhenever I do work with clients, I tend to reflect backwhat they're saying to be sure that what I've understood iscorrect. And my secondsuperpower I did mention is compassion. And I think it's importantto be able to truly understand your client in order to be able tohelp them in theirendeavours. Yeah. No, I completely agree. I think
Joanne Lockwoodhost
compassion is something that I think is a very human traitand something we often don't use enough. Weoften jump to judgement without using ourcompassion first. Would you say that you use
Michael Cerasiguest
compassion in your own work? I do. Personally, I think
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I'm sure I do. And it's trying to blend empathy,compassion, vulnerability, allowing somebody else to be vulnerableand that someone else to show to talk aboutthemselves and give them that space to be able to communicate in that way. AndI think having someone listen to you is a really powerfulthing that not everybody experiences. And when you have had someonejust listen to you without saying a word, it is so powerful. Sothat must be something that you're experiencing often.
Michael Cerasiguest
Yeah, I mean, I've had clients before that havetold me sincerely that they've never felt listened to ever.And for them it's quite a magical experience that someone isvery much dedicated their time to them andtowards their own. Well, it's
Joanne Lockwoodhost
interesting, I seem to remember when we met back in the days when you couldmeet physically. We're obviously in the height oflockdown season, it's the new norm, apparently.But we met in London, didn't we? And I remember we sat down for probablywhat I thought was going to be a half hour meeting or half hour conversationand I think it was about 4 hours later. Andalthough I felt drained, it was a very cathartic experiencebecause you are a very good listening and I hadn'trealised that that was what was happening until afterwards. So it was a verypowerful process. And I've probably talkedmore to you about stuff than I've ever talked to somebody elsebecause you are such an engaging listener, if youlike. And you were able to just prompt me every so often withsome additional bits of conversation that just kept me pouring it out,if you like. Well, you know, Joanne, I always enjoy our conversations
Michael Cerasiguest
together and whenever we plan to have a quick call, italways ends up being a few hours I loveto have a chat with. So do you
Joanne Lockwoodhost
find maybe when you're doing coaching thatit takes a while for people to open up? I mean, are people used tobeing able to be honest and vulnerable with you? I mean, is that something theyhave to learn themselves. It really depends on the client.
Michael Cerasiguest
Usually I work with clients for about six sessionsand that allows us to kind of go deep into thetopic or challenge that they have. But forsome clients, maybe only a few sessions would beenough. It really depends howlong it might take them to go intothe topic or how vulnerable they're able to be from the get goin order to see change. Do you
Joanne Lockwoodhost
ever find that you've opened a boxand they let something out that's really hard for them toprocess at that time? Or do you find generally people arequite reserved still and you have to tease things out of them.
Michael Cerasiguest
So people come to me as a coach because they feel stuck and they don'tknow what the next step is. Sothey wouldn't be coming to me if they knew what to do.There is a challenge around that. Butsometimes I do get clients that are confused betweenwhat coaching is compared to, for example, counselling or mentoring,when all three are quite different. And so ifthere is a topic that feels more towards thecounselling angle, I wouldn't be able to help them in that respect.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Okay, so counselling is where you're trying to resolve a problem, coaching is where you'retrying to unlock yourself. Is that the difference? So
Michael Cerasiguest
counselling is helping to curepast trauma that you might have had, whereascoaching looks at what is going on for you now and how is thataffecting your future. And so it's always future lookingin that sense. It's also non advisory as well. Sothat's the main difference between coaching and mentoring. For example.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah, I remember doing an Introduction toCoaching course myself a couple of years ago, and some ofthe exercise we did were really powerful whereeven by the way you look, a gesture,a body movement, or even the way you respond with a certain tonecan almost imply approval or disapprovalor acknowledgment or recognition. And you've also got to try andbe very neutral in your reactions to someone when they talk to you in acoaching model, haven't they? Yeah, I mean, the main focus of
Michael Cerasiguest
a coaching conversation are the powerful questions. And soit's very much how you word those questionsbecause you don't want to be asking closed questions or leadingquestions, because then that's essentially giving themsubconscious advice. Andthat's not the point of a coaching conversation.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yes, you're not after a yes or no type answer with a right or wrong.It's kind of a how do you feel? Or what does that look like toyou? Or what does that feel like to you? What does success feel likequestions. Isn't that exactly you've got it down perfectly. You'll
Michael Cerasiguest
be stealing my job next. I still remember the course I did
Joanne Lockwoodhost
and the grow model and all this other stuff and the learning laddersand all this kind of stuff. I remember the wheel of life or whatever thetechniques are. Yeah. But I think today
Michael Cerasiguest
a lot of people either focus on academics or theirphysical well being and often forget their own mentalstate and how that can impact where they're goingin their purpose or direction in life. And soa coaching session really allows someone tofocus on that and also invest in themselves forthat hour or a few hours that they have with the coach.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah. So what got you into coaching in the first place? I mean, you likelistening to people or you just came into it bymistake or by accident or was it a lifeguard? Well, I
Michael Cerasiguest
actually had a life changing experience when I volunteered as a massagetherapist for St Joseph's Hospice in Hackney in EastLondon. I was volunteering in thepalliative care unit where I was working with people in end oflife. And going into it, I thought that people would bequite sad and kind of ready to kind of completetheir life when in actual fact,most of the patients that I worked with really had a zest forlife and that's what inspired me. And Imeant that I wanted to kind of take that zestand have that same outlook in my own life and also help otherpeople do the same.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Wow, that's quite a life changing moment.I've never worked in that kind of environment or been around people in that kindof situation. I've never physicallyavoided it, but it's not something that I would thinkof working with people at that stage of their life.It's quite a challenging thing to do. Whenever I would
Michael Cerasiguest
meet a new patient, they would always be excited to tell me their storyor little anecdotes about their life andcouldn't wait to see my reaction to the stories that they wouldtell me. And that kind ofexcitement was wonderful to see in someone,maybe in the last few moments that they would have.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I watch people's stories on television, in documentaries, wherethey're going through their end of life parenthood scare typing, and Iget so emotionally connected with people, even through the television,I'm not sure that I could isolate my own selfenough to be in that environment on a day in, day out basis. So thatI got to admire the fact you can do that and you're able to partitionthat off in your head somehow. Thank you. I mean, it was
Michael Cerasiguest
definitely extremely rewarding and I really enjoyed my experience there.It became one of the highlights of my week, goinginto the hospice and helping the patients.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
The dangers, I'm going to say the word, some sort of falseplatitudes. And no, I do mean this with all sincerity, thatit's quite a valuable thing that you're able to do there.So we mentioned the COVID thing, we're right in themiddle of this and whilst this podcast will be on the internet, I hopefor a long time to come. It's worth maybe putting a marker in the groundat this time, like the end of May, beginning of June 2020,to sort of try and reflect on some of the challenges you're seeingwith people, some of your people. You're coaching or maybe you'reobserving behaviours from leaders or team membersand what people could be maybe doing better or what help people woulduse with in terms of your speciality, which iscoaching. So what are you saying at the moment? I think times
Michael Cerasiguest
like this are extremely importantin speaking to a coach because we're reallyin uncertain times, we don't know what the next step is. Andso having someone that is there to support youor to help you kind of figure out what mightbe right for you and it could be to do withthe relationships with the people that you have that you're currentlyliving with. So because we're at themoment maybe stuck in a home or self isolated altogether,it can be complicated at times, or itcould be maybe you've lost your job becauseof the pandemic and figuring out what the next step is in terms of yourcareer or how can youimprove your confidence in this type of situation.There are loads of different topics that people might want to discuss.In actual fact, at the moment, I'm offering mycoaching through a website called More Happy tofrontline key Workers and people who Have Lost TheirBusinesses because of COVID and I Hope to beAble To support the people that have been affected. So
Joanne Lockwoodhost
more happy. That's M-O-R-E-H-A-P-P-I. Is thatright? That's right, yes. And people can obviously Google that and find outmore if they want to. Yeah. And they can look up my profile
Michael Cerasiguest
on there. Oh, fantastic.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
We talk about authentic leadership and we seeleaders, if you like, themselves, having to adjust thischange.I speak often about the fact that we sometimestransform people from being a team member into a leader without always giving them theright tools in order to be a great leader. And Ithink none of us were prepared for this lockdown, none of us wereprepared to go completely virtual or not many of us were. SoI think leaders themselves are everyone's looking to them forguidance, everyone's looking to them for leadership and direction andthey struggle themselves, aren't they? And not every leader hasgot the tools in their own toolbox to self coach,self manage, to self motivate in this time. They'vegot their own struggles. So what advice would you give to someone who's maybein a leadership role about how to maybe look after themselves,put their own oxygen mask on and also help their team?
Michael Cerasiguest
I guess a lot of leaders end up kind of jumping into the deep endbecause that is the role that they've been given and they forget their own selfdevelopment. And I think it's important tolook at how your own growth and how your newkind of leadership title has affected you and how you planto build your relationships with your colleagues andstaff andhow can you? Better. Maybe, for example, manage your work life balance.At the moment, there's so much pushand pull from either your work or your family, anda lot of people don't know how to navigate that. Soit's a topic that I work with clients a lot actually, on how tomanage their time better. Yeah, because
Joanne Lockwoodhost
this is also because you don't drive home, get on the train.Some people are feeling like a slave to the black mirror,aren't they? They're feeling like they've got to work when they can, they're gettingup earlier, they're working later, or becausemaybe they've got other responsibilities, whether that's childcareor they're caring for relatives or they'reperforming other shopping tasks or whatever else they may be doing, they've almost felt they'vegot to make up time. So people I think I'm hearing that people are burningout more and getting more and more stressed. They're certainly burning out from zoom callsand video calls now, aren't they? I think at the moment, a lot of
Michael Cerasiguest
parents have to suddenly homeschool their children at the same timeas continue doing their own job andunderstanding how to manage that. At the same time,with quite maybe active children, how can you keep thementertained but also be continuing yourprofessional life? It can be quite difficult to manage.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Obviously, as a coach, you're not here to sort of solve anyone's problem. You're nothere to sort of come up with all the thoughts and answers yourself. Butwhat kind of questions would you ask somebody who ismaybe feeling a bit sort of trapped or in that locked in a cycle? Howwould you help them unlock that? Well, my role as a
Michael Cerasiguest
coach is to empower the person to understand their ownsituation. So I wouldn't be able to give youexample questions that I would ask them because it would reallydepend on the conversation and what they would like to bring up.So whenever I work with a client, the questions areunique to that client.If I worked from template questions, I'd feel likethe coach wouldn't necessarily be listening to the client, they would just beusing the questions that they know and theconversation wouldn't be bespoke at all. Okay.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
So you'd be looking to try and find out why they wanted to feel theyneeded to change, what was their why,what's going wrong, and let them unlock that themselvesas to whatever comes out of why they want to change or why they thinkthey need help. So in coaching, we often talk about what's called
Michael Cerasiguest
limiting beliefs. And these beliefsare, let's say, barriers or stumbling blocks that mightstop you from getting to where you want to go. And so wewould work together in kind of unpacking that and seeinghow that is affecting them now and whatways they can kind of work on that or try andgo around it to be able to get to their goal. Right,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I got you. Okay. I've had some pretty limitingbeliefs in my own life over the years, and I'vebroken through a few of them, but they're still there. I think it's ahuman thing. We all wish to beaccepted for who we are, embrace who we are. And sometimes we'retoo worried or get very nervous about pushing ourselves into our stretchzone or into our panic zone without reallywe like to be safe, don't we? And sometimes the limiting beliefs is that weneed to be safe, need to feel that we've got respect forpeople around us. And by going to our stretch, we sometimes feel, well, maybewhat's, some of them judge us at this point. What if I'm not quite goodenough? What if I can't succeed? So, yeah, I completely get that.And as I said, I had toovercome a few of those challenges myself. Exactly. Limiting
Michael Cerasiguest
beliefs are just part of being human and it makes us who we are.And so I'm not saying that we would want to be ina situation where we don't have any limiting beliefs at all, because that would makeus not human. But what I'm saying is that there are ways to be ableto overcome them, to be able to reach the challenge thatyou reach the goal that you want to achieve.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
One thing that I realised when I wasfeeling this intense impostor syndrome, which I guess isanother side of limiting beliefs, where you just feel you're not good enough,you got to be discovered, it's all part of feeling that same sort of partof your psyche. What I suddenly realised was I wasbenchmarking myself against myself,so I could never escape my shadow. So no matter howmuch I improved, I always saw my shadow with me. And therefore that wasmy reference point. So I never felt I was achieving anything. Soone of the things I learned was to be able to anchor a moment intime where I could see the difference between me todayand me then, and not judge myself about how I wasyesterday, but how I was three months ago. And then learn to listen topeople who said, that's good, that's fantastic, well done, reallyappreciate that. And take that as a compliment and lock it in and say,okay, I did a good job. I'm not going to beat myself up or doublethink that or go, no, you're only kidding, I don't believe you typething, which is often. We do that as well, don't we? So I've learned toaccept praise, recognition, feedback and positively.And I've also learned to anchor points inmy life so I can go back and benchmark myself against an anchor point. Ithink that really helped me in those terms. That sounds
Michael Cerasiguest
like a fantastic breakthrough to me. But we mustbe conscious that a lot of people won't know how to kind ofbreak that down in their head completely. Yeah, completely. And soworking with a coach, it might help them kind of see that perspective andget to the breakthrough that you've obviously achieved. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I think mine was hyper amplified by the fact I workalone a lot and I do lots of short term gig typework. So I'm always doing something new. I'm always meeting newpeople. I'm always doing another talk or another training session for different people.So therefore it's always hard to have any comparison between twodays or two weeks. So I guess if you're more closely aligned with theteam, it may be easier to benchmark yourself. But when you areliterally a loner, sometimes that's the hardthing. And I guess going back to the AAA theme
Michael Cerasiguest
or the supercharging is that gettingto that breakthrough moment would be much quicker with acoach. So a lot of people just don't have thetime to do that. And so it's important to kindof supercharge it and get to that stepquicker in many cases. So it's recognising. Your
Joanne Lockwoodhost
batteries are starting to get depleted of powerand learning. You've got to take them out of the back of the bunnyand put them on charge overnight or use the coach to beable to top up your charge again. That's kind of what you're saying, make timefor yourself. Well, I wouldn't want to say that the batteries are
Michael Cerasiguest
depleted because that just doesn't sound very friendly to my clients.But what I would say is that recognising thatyou're in a situation where you don't know how to get to the next stepand allowing yourself that time with someone who's there to supportyou and kind of gifting that timeto yourself. Yeah. Okay. So literally
Joanne Lockwoodhost
carving out a space in your schedule and say, this is me time, thisis investment time, this is to help me movepast my block time. So almost like a reward for giving that time upis that you make progress, you develop yourself. I mean, a lot of my
Michael Cerasiguest
clients aren't used to setting aside time just for themselvesin the same way that they might have never been listened to. They're notused to investing in themselves. And sojust giving themselves an hour, that's an hour ofjust them talking about themselves can be quitecathartic in that sense.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
What other stuff have you done in your life? I mean, you've obviously donethis with people at end of life,you've become a coach. What else have youdone? You're obviously worldly andwise. With my
Michael Cerasiguest
coaching, I'm currently working on a workshop called Thrivingamid Change Challenge and Uncertainty that I'm hopingto help people during the coronavirus time. Also,I'm developing my own podcast called Your Hero IsYou. And outsideof my coaching, I amworking alongside a fabulous team to create an online digitalmagazine for the LGBT plus community and its allies calledQueer Community.I personally identify as Biand it also meant that Ivolunteered at By Pride as head of stagesto help develop the first By Pridelast year in September. It's in London. Yeah,in London. That's right. The 7 September in London.It was the biggest buy event in the world and we welcomed just over.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
1000 people and alliesand all over the community. Exactly. I
Michael Cerasiguest
personally was very proud because Stonewallrecommended it as one of the most inclusive Pride events ever.And so for us, By Pride at the time, it was a hugesuccess. Fantastic. So did you march
Joanne Lockwoodhost
through London? Did you or was it just a static event? So
Michael Cerasiguest
it was a static event. Wealso marched at Pride of London as well, butour event was hosted with two stages, so I washead of stages, so my responsibility was kind ofmanaging what was the performers on themain stage and also the speakers on the I Am Proud stage.I also spoke myself on my own coachingwith a talk called By Leaving Yourself and Dream Big.So you have to mind the pun there.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah, by leaving yourself. No, I got that.So you manage two stages. Have you got a background inrock star management or that or dealing withdivas? Well, before
Michael Cerasiguest
working in health and wellbeing, my background was in fashion, so I workedon fashion show production. I worked on, forexample, Martin Margiela's Show or London Fashion Week.So in these types of events, you'reused to working with very high profile people.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
So any big name bands we would have heard of that were there,or up and coming artists, were they? So
Michael Cerasiguest
for us, it wasn't necessarily getting the biggest names.We definitely wanted more by representation,but we did have some kind offamous bistars or LGBTgroups and so it was a really magical day and forme, just to see a whole room of Bi peopleall under one roof was reallyawesome. Back in
Joanne Lockwoodhost
my youth, I was in the RAF for a few years andI used to look after entertainment for the Nafi,for the non commissionedbar club, for the station I was at.And one of my kind of claims to fame is thatI booked Katrina and The Waves a number oftimes. This is back in the early 80s, before they got it big,before Walking on Sunshine became a massive hit.I saw them perform that live. I was drinking,I think, beers or cocktails with them in the green room,which is actually a TV room upstairs, I think, in the club where people usedto watch television screen off. But there's Katrina, The Waves and the band,all sort of like getting changed, drinking, having chats with them. I bookedthem several times. I never classed myselfas a friend, but more a good acquaintance, because we werekind of familiar. So to see them succeed inthe Eurovision and see them still going is quite proudof that. And I've got their first album. I used to have their firstalbum on vinyl, which is a pre production press with a coupleof typos. So, yeah, I was quite pleased aboutthat. So now I've got memories of my own stageproduction and stuff like that as well. That's really fantastic and great that
Michael Cerasiguest
you met those people and you could followon with By Pride because we had two stages, eachstage was 7 hours each, so it meant that we were organising14 hours of content, so it was a lot ofpressure. With it also being the first event,I'm pleased that we got a lot of very good reviews.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yes, I know. It's like when you're doing something the first time andonly time, it's not like you can say, right, that was brilliant, we'll do itagain tomorrow and the day after, the day after. It's very hard to learn thelesson because even next year something will be different. It'll be a slightlydifferent field, a slight different weather condition, slight different stage crew or something.At least I had the luck in this NAFFI that the building wasn't going tochange and the stage wasn't going to change, and generally thing was pretty static.It was just a case of weeding somebody and put them on the stage andthey got on with no hats off to you. That must havebeen a big learning exercise. And it was
Michael Cerasiguest
wonderful to work with the team at By Pride as well. And I'vemade some friends for life. From the people that I'vemet there. I can imagine those sort of things.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
They're quite bonding, aren't they? That shared experience isreally powerful. Definitely.So you mentioned this queer community, this online magazine.Tell me a bit more about that. We're hoping to launch in
Michael Cerasiguest
September. The aim of the magazine is toamplify the voices of LGBT Plus and itsallies. We want to make it a really inclusivemagazine and share the stories of realpeople. So it could be, let'ssay, your next door neighbour giving their story abouttheir, for example, I don't know, gender identity or their sexualorientation, or it could be nothing to do with that,it could be anythingunder the sun. But we just want to have amagazine that is a homesomewhere, a safe space where people feel welcome andable to kind of learn about each other and interact.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
So have you got any guests lined up, features linedup?
Michael Cerasiguest
Well, if you don't mind me sharing, we're hoping to featureyou in our first issue.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
If I ever pull my finger out and get it back. To
Michael Cerasiguest
which I'm really excited toinclude you because you have such a powerful story in all ofyour work that you're doing. And Ican't wait to kind of see the article that youwrite and the content that you share with us.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
That's a good bit of chasing up, isn't it? I can't wait to the articleI'm going to write either.Maybe I need some coaching on how to unlock that.
Michael Cerasiguest
But also we're a small team now. We're all volunteersand I've spoken to them about you and they're also very excitedto hear more about your story. Andit's great that in these difficult times of the pandemic,we're all open to kind of offer our time for free to makethis online magazine a reality and tohelp others along the way. I'm really thankful that myteam is there to make it happen.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
So you mentioned that you identify as by yourself.Yeah, I'm sure you do.I certainly do come across a lot of misunderstandings of what that means, whatthat term is. Even within the LGBT community,it's still often misunderstood identity.Do you want to take this opportunity just to maybe sort of tell our listenerswhat being bi means to you?
Michael Cerasiguest
Being bi means that I'mattracted to anyonebeyond gender. So it doesn't necessarilyjust mean that I'm attracted to just men or just womenor both. And it's not transexclusionary either. A lot of people make that assumptionand it doesn't exclude non binary peopleeither. I thinkfor a person that's bi, they're just open toany gender in that sense, but differentbi people have their own definitions of what being biis. But this is my personal definition. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
And whenever I talk about identities, it's how you identifyand how you would describe it. That's the important thing. And other people, asyou say, may have a different definition, but no one shouldbe arguing about who's more right on that. It's about how you feel and howI feel about my identity because I getmyself confused about whether I'm straight, bi orpan because I'm still married to the person Imarried 30 years ago. Theirgender and sexuality hasn't changed, but mygender has. And people get very curious about how I nowidentify and I would rather not identify as anything otherthan married. It's kind of my identity as married toa spouse who's a woman. ButI often locked onto using pansexual as a termpan because that, for me, if you get theWikipedia definition out, pan is more how you describeyour definition of bi, which is more of a contemporaryidentity way of describing bisexuality. So Iwas curious about how you saw yourself in relation to the termpan. Maybe for me, I view bi and
Michael Cerasiguest
pan interchangeably. I wouldvery much be open to calling myself pan as well.But the thing is that when youtell people a lot of people have no idea what pan is,so that's why it just tends to be more comfortable to tellpeople I'm bi, whereas I probably identifymore as pan. On the Wikipedia
Joanne Lockwoodhost
definitions, it's more pan, but your definition ofby is pan or pan buy. So it's just that you'recomfortable. I get what you mean. Sometimes you've got to go for the easyphrase to fit in with the masses, haven't you?
Michael Cerasiguest
Unfortunately, as you mentioned, there's a lot of stigma aroundbeing bi. Also even more stigma aboutbeing bi and male.So I've been told to my face by people that bisexualitydoesn't exist, or that I'm just on the way tobecoming gay, orthat I'm too greedy, or that I could never be faithful, orthat I'm just doing it for theattention, which is I personally believethat it's very sad. And I guess my response to thatis, I do exist. I'm not the Tooth Fairy or FatherChristmas,and it's something thatpeople should become more aware of in manycases. And I thought being trans was complicated. I mean,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
it sounds like you've got the same sort of challenges. Peoplethink I'm the Tooth Fairy sometimes as well.
Michael Cerasiguest
I think the trans community and the bi communitycan help each other out in many ways and supporteach other in terms of raising awareness for each other.Andmy purpose is to help kind of educate peoplein understanding sexual orientationor not judging people from what they might have heard.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Is that why you call yourself the Rainbow Coach? Is it?
Michael Cerasiguest
So I chose the Rainbow Coach because,first of all, a rainbow is extremely colourful and joyous.Second of all, it has the mythof going towards a pot of goldif you follow the rainbow. And so I quite like that ideaof kind of following your journey to find your pot of gold. And yourpot of gold could be whatever goal yougive yourself. Also,obviously, because I specialise with workingwith the LGBT plus community, the rainbowflag is symbolic for them in terms of Pride and it's whatmakes up the Pride flag itself.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah, I'm not sure how many people realisethis, but the Pride flag or the LGBT flag orthe rainbow flag isn't actually the same colours as a rainbow in thesky, is it? The Pride flag has sixcolours. It used to have pink, but apparentlyit was hard to get hold of or something at the time when they're producingthem, so they dropped it. So there was a hot pink in there, wasn't there?
Michael Cerasiguest
There was a hot pink and a turquoise. Yeah. And they blended those
Joanne Lockwoodhost
colours out because they're hard to reproduce or they were difficult to get hold of.What we got now is not a rainbow rainbow. It is the Prideflag. And people often don't getconfused about a rainbow and a Pride flag,but they are different things and different colours, although most people don't notice,which is. Very disappointing for me on a personal level, because they got rid of
Michael Cerasiguest
turquoise. And I'm half Turkish,so it's the colour from my country.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Is that where the name comes from? Is it Frenchism of Turkey?
Michael Cerasiguest
Yeah. I believe that it was derived fromTurkey. Exactly. Because turquoise sounds
Joanne Lockwoodhost
French to me. In my sort of language,it would. Be pronounced originally as chocoise, which is in French.
Michael Cerasiguest
That's right. And that's of
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Turkey. Exactly. From Turkish origin.Okay. Well, if nothing else, this podcast, we've heard thattoday where Turkey came from. Where turquoise came from, but also
Michael Cerasiguest
now we also have an evenmore inclusive flag with the brown and black colourthat has been added. Or there's another flag as well, withthe trans symbol as well. So there are several flagsthat we can be using.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
There's lots of debate within the we call it a community.We call it in the LGBT population, whichever word sort of seemsto fit about these different flags andwhether we're being too inclusionary now or whether we've complicated things andsupporting everybody, I'm sure that debate will go far onto the futureand probably nothing we could contribute right here. But yeah, there are lotsof I did some research myself on Pride flags aroundgender identities, and I'm trying to pull together a collection of them.And just looking at different identities is sucha lot of different ways people dorelate to their own gender, from grey todemi and various other ones, whichI think when we started this off, this conversation earlier, we talked about howyou identify how you describe yourself. And if there's not a phrase thatdescribes you in the way you describe yourself, then this is where peopleare evolving these identities to allow them to feel more comfortable with thatas a definition of who they are. I think as long as the flags
Michael Cerasiguest
bring us together rather than see us apart, that's the maingoal in itself. Just more like the Olympic
Joanne Lockwoodhost
flags rather than the football team flags, where people are competing. This is kindof competing together as a collaborative sortof celebration of each other rather than against each other.
Michael Cerasiguest
Exactly. We should celebrate each other rather than pitourselves against each other.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
So what things have you overcome in your life, then,when you coached yourself? Kind of things have you overcome?
Michael Cerasiguest
I would say I found it challenging in terms of accepting who Iam and choosing to lead an authenticlife. I guessbecause of the stigma around being bisexual, it took me a long time,first of all, to learn aboutwhat bisexual was when I was growingup. It wasn't a term that was used verycommonly, and alsobecause of the stigma around it, it probably delayedme into coming to terms with my own sexualorientation. And sotoday, now, for me, it's a constantchoice to kind of live authentically and tobe myself. And it's something thatI now have the luxury to be able to choose.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Is the word authentic authenticity? Is it an overused andabused term? It is, because I've seen what I would callinfluencers and role models on Instagram andYouTubers, using the fact they'reauthentic as an excuse to be rude,to be nasty to people.So how would you sort of see authenticshould be seen? I
Michael Cerasiguest
think authentic should be seen as having the power to be yourtrue self and to be unique and tofor example, we started off the call about superpowers.So knowing your own superpowers and being able to embracethose as well. Of course anyword can be used in the wrong way andunfortunately, authentic can, as you'vesaid online, be used in a negative sense.And a lot of people do use it on social media. But I thinkit's because we didn't have the awarenessbefore or we didn't necessarily allow ourselves to beauthentic in the past and this is now. We're in a timeof change in that and people are slowly opening themselves up totheir own identities. So
Joanne Lockwoodhost
it's not an excuse to be rude. It's not an excuse to hide behind myauthenticity or actually what they're saying isauthentically. I'm a bad person on the inside and I'm just showing this.It's kind of what they're saying, isn't it, really? By being openly authentic,telling the truth, it's not authenticity. I would
Michael Cerasiguest
say there's never an excuse to be rude, to be honest.You'd hope people wouldn't be.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
But I've seen many conversationson some of these platforms where people are using the word they'rebanning around the word authentic like some sort ofright to express themselves because they're just being authenticabout what they think. Well, obviouslymaturity comes into that lived experience.Not wishing to put other people down and thinking about the good thingsthat come out of authenticity, which is about understanding about self expression,understanding about identity, understanding speaking from the eye, speaking from with yourpassion and speaking with your own desires is more the authenticity I would startfrom. Yes, I think it's also remembering that authenticity comes
Michael Cerasiguest
from you. So a lot of peoplemight think that for me, as a life coach, I'm just going to tellthem what authenticity is and then give themthe step by step plan of how to become more authentic.In actual fact, that's not the case. Icould spend 1000 hours with a client and I still won't know them as wellas they know themselves. And in thatbeing said, they might choose specific storiesto tell me and might not tell me their completeself. So I work with my clients to be ableto enable them or to be able to uplift them, to be able togive them more recognition of themselves,to be able to feel empowered andto understand that authenticity within themselves.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
That is really powerful.I don't think I discovered what authenticity meantto me until I transitioned.At that point there, I think I was so brought upon the escalator of life, just heading in a direction that I didn'tever stop in question who I was, what my valueswere. And I think that's often the case for many people, thatunless they have some checkpoint in their life where itcauses them to reflect that you off blindly followthis course without even thinking about it.
Michael Cerasiguest
I think we mentioned challenges earlier on. I thinkfor me, I did have challenges in terms of accepting mysexual orientation, but alsoin terms of accepting myselffor who I am. I personally amnot the most masculine of men, and it's something thatI did try to hide for a very long amount of time andnot embrace my feminine side because I felt that at thetime, it just wasn't perceived verywell. And that's something that I've worked on in myselfto kind of be more open to my feminine sideand embrace. That
Joanne Lockwoodhost
the world hasn't stopped and everything's carried on.And you're still okay. Yes, exactly.He talked about some of the stuff you're doing at the moment, so more happyby Pride pre community, your workshop onthriving and change and challenge and uncertainty and yourpodcast coming out. What does kind of likethe future hold for you? Where are you going with your life? Or areyou just wandering around, see what happens? So
Michael Cerasiguest
I'm hoping to help more and more peoplewith my coaching. My coaching isall done online, so it means that I'm able to access more and morepeople. And even during this kind ofcorona pandemic time, we're still able to communicatein that sense. And I'd like to be able to,with the magazine, raise more awareness of theLGBTQ plus community. AndI want to be able to kind of grow my networkto be able to help more people.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Fantastic. So people are trying to get hold of you. How do people gethold of you? Obviously, you'd welcome people to connect with youon things like LinkedIn or Instagram. How do they find you?
Michael Cerasiguest
So, yeah, they're welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn. I have mywebsite, https://TheRainbowCoach.com, or theycan connect with me on Instagram at The underscore"_" Rainbow underscore "_" Coach.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
And your name is Cerasi, which isC-E-R-A-S-I. For those who are trying to Google yoursor type you into LinkedIn. Yeah, that's right. It actually means cherry tree in
Michael Cerasiguest
another language. Oh, wow, that's beautiful.So michael tarassi. That's right. I hopeso.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah. That's really great. Well, many. Thank you, Michael. I'm sure that the listeners willagree there's much to ponder there and take inspiration from, and Ireally appreciate everyone's time for tuning in and listening today. Soplease do subscribe to keep updated on future episodes ofthe Inclusion Bites podcast that's B-I-T-E-S. Pleasetell your friends, please tell your colleagues. I have a number of excitingguests lined up and I'm sure you'll be inspired by them over the next weeksand months, whenever this lockdown may end.So remember, if you'd like to be a guest, please let me know. You're mostwelcome. And if you have any feedback or suggestions, then please do send me amessage to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk- that's jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk forany of the future shows or how we can improve. So it's beena pleasure. And if you hadn't worked out already, my name is Joanne Lockwood, andI've been your host, the Inclusion Bites Podcast today. Catch you nexttime.
