--- title: "It’s all about Acceptance and Authenticity to be able to Achieve" episode: 6 date: 2020-06-13 guest: "Michael Cerasi" canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/6-its-all-about-acceptance-and-authenticity-to-be-able-to-achi audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-006/audio.mp3 --- # It’s all about Acceptance and Authenticity to be able to Achieve Joanne Lockwood is joined by transformational life coach Michael Cerasi to explore his AAA philosophy: acceptance and authenticity as foundations for achievement. They unpack what active listening really means, why compassion matters, and how coaching differs from counselling and mentoring. The conversation looks at common barriers such as limiting beliefs, imposter feelings, and the challenge of making time to invest in yourself, especially during the uncertainty of the COVID period. Joanne shares practical reflections on benchmarking progress and learning to accept positive feedback. Michael also talks about giving back to the LGBTQ+ community through projects including Bi Pride and an online magazine, and shares parts of his own journey of coming out as bisexual and choosing to live authentically despite stigma and misconceptions. ## Chapters - 00:00 — Interview series on inclusion, with Joanne Lockwood. - 04:59 — Unexpectedly long and meaningful conversation, excellent listener. - 07:07 — People seek my coaching when they're unsure. - 12:32 — The dangers of false platitudes amidst COVID-19. - 13:20 — Coaching helps during uncertain times like this. - 19:31 — Breaking through limiting beliefs to embrace ourselves. - 20:45 — Realized impostor syndrome, compared myself, felt unachieving. Anchored progress, listened to positive feedback. - 24:57 — Coaching, podcast, magazine - supporting LGBTQ+ community. - 28:18 — Booked Katrina and The Waves in RAF. - 31:06 — Inclusive LGBT+ magazine launching in September. - 34:36 — Identity is personal, no need for arguments. - 40:49 — Debate on inclusion in LGBT community continues. - 43:54 — Authenticity is embracing your unique self. - 45:52 — Authenticity originates from within, not external guidance. - 50:13 — Appreciate great content, subscribe and share! ## Key takeaways - The dangers of false platitudes during the COVID-19 pandemic and the value of reflecting on current challenges. - Behaviours of leaders and team members that need improvement and how coaching can assist. - The complex debate within the LGBTQ+ community regarding pride flags and their inclusivity. - Strategies for leaders to manage work-life balance and handle the pressures of a constantly connected world. - The impact of video calls and virtual work on stress and burnout, with practical tips to mitigate these effects. - Overcoming limiting beliefs and the role of authenticity in personal and professional growth. - Building genuine relationships in the workplace and the importance of self-reflection for leaders. ## FAQs ### Q: What is the focus of The Inclusion Bites Podcast? The podcast is all about inclusion, belonging, and creating a better world for everyone. ### Q: Who are the hosts of the podcast? The host of the podcast is Joanne Lockwood. ### Q: Who was the guest on Episode 6 of the podcast? The guest on Episode 6 was Michael Jarasi. ### Q: What are some challenges that leaders are facing during the pandemic? Many leaders are struggling to adjust to the sudden shift to virtual work and are expected to provide guidance and direction to their teams. ### Q: How can leaders take care of themselves and support their teams during these challenging times? Leaders can engage in self-coaching, self-management, and self-motivation. Seeking guidance from a coach can also be beneficial. ### Q: What is impostor syndrome? Impostor syndrome refers to the feeling of not being good enough or believing that one will be discovered as a fraud, despite evidence of their accomplishments. ## Transcript Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I am your host. The Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I will be interviewing a number of amazing people and simply having a conversation around the subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive in. If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a line to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk and that's you be able to catch up with all of the episodes on itunes, Spotify and all the usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's get going. Today is episode six with the title It's all about acceptance and authenticity in order to be able to achieve. I have the absolute honour and privilege to be joined by Michael Jarasi. I met Michael randomly on LinkedIn, like you do, and Michael described himself as a transformational life coach. So I asked Michael to tell me about his superpower and he said he's an active listener and full of compassion. So hello, Michael, welcome to the show. Lovely to be here, joanne, I'm excited Michael Cerasi: to chat to you today. So tell, Joanne Lockwood: why is it all about acceptance and authenticity in order to be able to achieve? Well, actually, for me, I believe Michael Cerasi: this is my philosophy when working with clients. I call it AAA. It's an easy abbreviation to remember. You think of your AAA batteries, and here today, I hope to kind of supercharge people's journey into success and achieving. Wow. AAA Joanne Lockwood: batteries. So they're fully rechargeable. So you pop on charge overnight or a good session with you and that charges people's batteries run up again. That's right. And I think it's important Michael Cerasi: to know your own values, to be able to navigate success and know which direction to go in. Joanne Lockwood: So how does your superpower of your listening compassion come into that, to play in that? Well, when I tell people my superpower is active Michael Cerasi: listening, a lot of people think, oh, my God, listening is so easy, anyone can do that. But in actual fact, it takes a lot of concentration to listen to someone properly, especially not giving them advice. A lot of family members will think that they're listening to you, but in actual fact tell you what to do. So I think it's important to be able to take what someone's saying and let them have the opportunity to make the decisions themselves. Yeah, Joanne Lockwood: that's a really good point. I know myself sometimes when I'm zoned out, I've got my black mirror in my hand, I'm playing with my phone, my mind's elsewhere and someone's trying to talk to me. I know myself that sometimes I'm not giving people that respect of listening. 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 you learned in order to help yourself become an active listener? I Michael Cerasi: think today in the modern world, we have so many distractions and that could be your phone, it could be the television, so I have to switch everything off. I dedicate that specific time to my clients and ensure that I'm completely concentrated on the conversation. And whenever I do work with clients, I tend to reflect back what they're saying to be sure that what I've understood is correct. And my second superpower I did mention is compassion. And I think it's important to be able to truly understand your client in order to be able to help them in their endeavours. Yeah. No, I completely agree. I think Joanne Lockwood: compassion is something that I think is a very human trait and something we often don't use enough. We often jump to judgement without using our compassion first. Would you say that you use Michael Cerasi: compassion in your own work? I do. Personally, I think Joanne Lockwood: I'm sure I do. And it's trying to blend empathy, compassion, vulnerability, allowing somebody else to be vulnerable and that someone else to show to talk about themselves and give them that space to be able to communicate in that way. And I think having someone listen to you is a really powerful thing that not everybody experiences. And when you have had someone just listen to you without saying a word, it is so powerful. So that must be something that you're experiencing often. Michael Cerasi: Yeah, I mean, I've had clients before that have told me sincerely that they've never felt listened to ever. And for them it's quite a magical experience that someone is very much dedicated their time to them and towards their own. Well, it's Joanne Lockwood: interesting, I seem to remember when we met back in the days when you could meet physically. We're obviously in the height of lockdown season, it's the new norm, apparently. But we met in London, didn't we? And I remember we sat down for probably what I thought was going to be a half hour meeting or half hour conversation and I think it was about 4 hours later. And although I felt drained, it was a very cathartic experience because you are a very good listening and I hadn't realised that that was what was happening until afterwards. So it was a very powerful process. And I've probably talked more to you about stuff than I've ever talked to somebody else because you are such an engaging listener, if you like. And you were able to just prompt me every so often with some additional bits of conversation that just kept me pouring it out, if you like. Well, you know, Joanne, I always enjoy our conversations Michael Cerasi: together and whenever we plan to have a quick call, it always ends up being a few hours I love to have a chat with. So do you Joanne Lockwood: find maybe when you're doing coaching that it takes a while for people to open up? I mean, are people used to being able to be honest and vulnerable with you? I mean, is that something they have to learn themselves. It really depends on the client. Michael Cerasi: Usually I work with clients for about six sessions and that allows us to kind of go deep into the topic or challenge that they have. But for some clients, maybe only a few sessions would be enough. It really depends how long it might take them to go into the topic or how vulnerable they're able to be from the get go in order to see change. Do you Joanne Lockwood: ever find that you've opened a box and they let something out that's really hard for them to process at that time? Or do you find generally people are quite reserved still and you have to tease things out of them. Michael Cerasi: So people come to me as a coach because they feel stuck and they don't know what the next step is. So they wouldn't be coming to me if they knew what to do. There is a challenge around that. But sometimes I do get clients that are confused between what coaching is compared to, for example, counselling or mentoring, when all three are quite different. And so if there is a topic that feels more towards the counselling angle, I wouldn't be able to help them in that respect. Joanne Lockwood: Okay, so counselling is where you're trying to resolve a problem, coaching is where you're trying to unlock yourself. Is that the difference? So Michael Cerasi: counselling is helping to cure past trauma that you might have had, whereas coaching looks at what is going on for you now and how is that affecting your future. And so it's always future looking in that sense. It's also non advisory as well. So that's the main difference between coaching and mentoring. For example. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I remember doing an Introduction to Coaching course myself a couple of years ago, and some of the exercise we did were really powerful where even by the way you look, a gesture, a body movement, or even the way you respond with a certain tone can almost imply approval or disapproval or acknowledgment or recognition. And you've also got to try and be very neutral in your reactions to someone when they talk to you in a coaching model, haven't they? Yeah, I mean, the main focus of Michael Cerasi: a coaching conversation are the powerful questions. And so it's very much how you word those questions because you don't want to be asking closed questions or leading questions, because then that's essentially giving them subconscious advice. And that's not the point of a coaching conversation. Joanne Lockwood: 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 to you? Or what does that feel like to you? What does success feel like questions. Isn't that exactly you've got it down perfectly. You'll Michael Cerasi: be stealing my job next. I still remember the course I did Joanne Lockwood: and the grow model and all this other stuff and the learning ladders and all this kind of stuff. I remember the wheel of life or whatever the techniques are. Yeah. But I think today Michael Cerasi: a lot of people either focus on academics or their physical well being and often forget their own mental state and how that can impact where they're going in their purpose or direction in life. And so a coaching session really allows someone to focus on that and also invest in themselves for that hour or a few hours that they have with the coach. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. So what got you into coaching in the first place? I mean, you like listening to people or you just came into it by mistake or by accident or was it a lifeguard? Well, I Michael Cerasi: actually had a life changing experience when I volunteered as a massage therapist for St Joseph's Hospice in Hackney in East London. I was volunteering in the palliative care unit where I was working with people in end of life. And going into it, I thought that people would be quite sad and kind of ready to kind of complete their life when in actual fact, most of the patients that I worked with really had a zest for life and that's what inspired me. And I meant that I wanted to kind of take that zest and have that same outlook in my own life and also help other people do the same. Joanne Lockwood: Wow, that's quite a life changing moment. I've never worked in that kind of environment or been around people in that kind of situation. I've never physically avoided it, but it's not something that I would think of working with people at that stage of their life. It's quite a challenging thing to do. Whenever I would Michael Cerasi: meet a new patient, they would always be excited to tell me their story or little anecdotes about their life and couldn't wait to see my reaction to the stories that they would tell me. And that kind of excitement was wonderful to see in someone, maybe in the last few moments that they would have. Joanne Lockwood: I watch people's stories on television, in documentaries, where they're going through their end of life parenthood scare typing, and I get so emotionally connected with people, even through the television, I'm not sure that I could isolate my own self enough to be in that environment on a day in, day out basis. So that I got to admire the fact you can do that and you're able to partition that off in your head somehow. Thank you. I mean, it was Michael Cerasi: definitely extremely rewarding and I really enjoyed my experience there. It became one of the highlights of my week, going into the hospice and helping the patients. Joanne Lockwood: The dangers, I'm going to say the word, some sort of false platitudes. And no, I do mean this with all sincerity, that it's quite a valuable thing that you're able to do there. So we mentioned the COVID thing, we're right in the middle of this and whilst this podcast will be on the internet, I hope for a long time to come. It's worth maybe putting a marker in the ground at this time, like the end of May, beginning of June 2020, to sort of try and reflect on some of the challenges you're seeing with people, some of your people. You're coaching or maybe you're observing behaviours from leaders or team members and what people could be maybe doing better or what help people would use with in terms of your speciality, which is coaching. So what are you saying at the moment? I think times Michael Cerasi: like this are extremely important in speaking to a coach because we're really in uncertain times, we don't know what the next step is. And so having someone that is there to support you or to help you kind of figure out what might be right for you and it could be to do with the relationships with the people that you have that you're currently living with. So because we're at the moment maybe stuck in a home or self isolated altogether, it can be complicated at times, or it could be maybe you've lost your job because of the pandemic and figuring out what the next step is in terms of your career or how can you improve 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 my coaching through a website called More Happy to frontline key Workers and people who Have Lost Their Businesses because of COVID and I Hope to be Able To support the people that have been affected. So Joanne Lockwood: more happy. That's M-O-R-E-H-A-P-P-I. Is that right? That's right, yes. And people can obviously Google that and find out more if they want to. Yeah. And they can look up my profile Michael Cerasi: on there. Oh, fantastic. Joanne Lockwood: We talk about authentic leadership and we see leaders, if you like, themselves, having to adjust this change. I speak often about the fact that we sometimes transform people from being a team member into a leader without always giving them the right tools in order to be a great leader. And I think none of us were prepared for this lockdown, none of us were prepared to go completely virtual or not many of us were. So I think leaders themselves are everyone's looking to them for guidance, everyone's looking to them for leadership and direction and they struggle themselves, aren't they? And not every leader has got the tools in their own toolbox to self coach, self manage, to self motivate in this time. They've got their own struggles. So what advice would you give to someone who's maybe in a leadership role about how to maybe look after themselves, put their own oxygen mask on and also help their team? Michael Cerasi: I guess a lot of leaders end up kind of jumping into the deep end because that is the role that they've been given and they forget their own self development. And I think it's important to look at how your own growth and how your new kind of leadership title has affected you and how you plan to build your relationships with your colleagues and staff and how can you? Better. Maybe, for example, manage your work life balance. At the moment, there's so much push and pull from either your work or your family, and a lot of people don't know how to navigate that. So it's a topic that I work with clients a lot actually, on how to manage their time better. Yeah, because Joanne Lockwood: 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 getting up earlier, they're working later, or because maybe they've got other responsibilities, whether that's childcare or they're caring for relatives or they're performing other shopping tasks or whatever else they may be doing, they've almost felt they've got to make up time. So people I think I'm hearing that people are burning out more and getting more and more stressed. They're certainly burning out from zoom calls and video calls now, aren't they? I think at the moment, a lot of Michael Cerasi: parents have to suddenly homeschool their children at the same time as continue doing their own job and understanding how to manage that. At the same time, with quite maybe active children, how can you keep them entertained but also be continuing your professional life? It can be quite difficult to manage. Joanne Lockwood: Obviously, as a coach, you're not here to sort of solve anyone's problem. You're not here to sort of come up with all the thoughts and answers yourself. But what kind of questions would you ask somebody who is maybe feeling a bit sort of trapped or in that locked in a cycle? How would you help them unlock that? Well, my role as a Michael Cerasi: coach is to empower the person to understand their own situation. So I wouldn't be able to give you example questions that I would ask them because it would really depend on the conversation and what they would like to bring up. So whenever I work with a client, the questions are unique to that client. If I worked from template questions, I'd feel like the coach wouldn't necessarily be listening to the client, they would just be using the questions that they know and the conversation wouldn't be bespoke at all. Okay. Joanne Lockwood: So you'd be looking to try and find out why they wanted to feel they needed to change, what was their why, what's going wrong, and let them unlock that themselves as to whatever comes out of why they want to change or why they think they need help. So in coaching, we often talk about what's called Michael Cerasi: limiting beliefs. And these beliefs are, let's say, barriers or stumbling blocks that might stop you from getting to where you want to go. And so we would work together in kind of unpacking that and seeing how that is affecting them now and what ways they can kind of work on that or try and go around it to be able to get to their goal. Right, Joanne Lockwood: I got you. Okay. I've had some pretty limiting beliefs in my own life over the years, and I've broken through a few of them, but they're still there. I think it's a human thing. We all wish to be accepted for who we are, embrace who we are. And sometimes we're too worried or get very nervous about pushing ourselves into our stretch zone or into our panic zone without really we like to be safe, don't we? And sometimes the limiting beliefs is that we need to be safe, need to feel that we've got respect for people around us. And by going to our stretch, we sometimes feel, well, maybe what's, some of them judge us at this point. What if I'm not quite good enough? What if I can't succeed? So, yeah, I completely get that. And as I said, I had to overcome a few of those challenges myself. Exactly. Limiting Michael Cerasi: 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 in a situation where we don't have any limiting beliefs at all, because that would make us not human. But what I'm saying is that there are ways to be able to overcome them, to be able to reach the challenge that you reach the goal that you want to achieve. Joanne Lockwood: One thing that I realised when I was feeling this intense impostor syndrome, which I guess is another 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 part of your psyche. What I suddenly realised was I was benchmarking myself against myself, so I could never escape my shadow. So no matter how much I improved, I always saw my shadow with me. And therefore that was my reference point. So I never felt I was achieving anything. So one of the things I learned was to be able to anchor a moment in time where I could see the difference between me today and me then, and not judge myself about how I was yesterday, but how I was three months ago. And then learn to listen to people who said, that's good, that's fantastic, well done, really appreciate 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 double think that or go, no, you're only kidding, I don't believe you type thing, which is often. We do that as well, don't we? So I've learned to accept praise, recognition, feedback and positively. And I've also learned to anchor points in my life so I can go back and benchmark myself against an anchor point. I think that really helped me in those terms. That sounds Michael Cerasi: like a fantastic breakthrough to me. But we must be conscious that a lot of people won't know how to kind of break that down in their head completely. Yeah, completely. And so working with a coach, it might help them kind of see that perspective and get to the breakthrough that you've obviously achieved. Yeah, Joanne Lockwood: I think mine was hyper amplified by the fact I work alone a lot and I do lots of short term gig type work. So I'm always doing something new. I'm always meeting new people. I'm always doing another talk or another training session for different people. So therefore it's always hard to have any comparison between two days or two weeks. So I guess if you're more closely aligned with the team, it may be easier to benchmark yourself. But when you are literally a loner, sometimes that's the hard thing. And I guess going back to the AAA theme Michael Cerasi: or the supercharging is that getting to that breakthrough moment would be much quicker with a coach. So a lot of people just don't have the time to do that. And so it's important to kind of supercharge it and get to that step quicker in many cases. So it's recognising. Your Joanne Lockwood: batteries are starting to get depleted of power and learning. You've got to take them out of the back of the bunny and put them on charge overnight or use the coach to be able to top up your charge again. That's kind of what you're saying, make time for yourself. Well, I wouldn't want to say that the batteries are Michael Cerasi: depleted because that just doesn't sound very friendly to my clients. But what I would say is that recognising that you're in a situation where you don't know how to get to the next step and allowing yourself that time with someone who's there to support you and kind of gifting that time to yourself. Yeah. Okay. So literally Joanne Lockwood: carving out a space in your schedule and say, this is me time, this is investment time, this is to help me move past my block time. So almost like a reward for giving that time up is that you make progress, you develop yourself. I mean, a lot of my Michael Cerasi: clients aren't used to setting aside time just for themselves in the same way that they might have never been listened to. They're not used to investing in themselves. And so just giving themselves an hour, that's an hour of just them talking about themselves can be quite cathartic in that sense. Joanne Lockwood: What other stuff have you done in your life? I mean, you've obviously done this with people at end of life, you've become a coach. What else have you done? You're obviously worldly and wise. With my Michael Cerasi: coaching, I'm currently working on a workshop called Thriving amid Change Challenge and Uncertainty that I'm hoping to help people during the coronavirus time. Also, I'm developing my own podcast called Your Hero Is You. And outside of my coaching, I am working alongside a fabulous team to create an online digital magazine for the LGBT plus community and its allies called Queer Community. I personally identify as Bi and it also meant that I volunteered at By Pride as head of stages to help develop the first By Pride last 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 Lockwood: 1000 people and allies and all over the community. Exactly. I Michael Cerasi: personally was very proud because Stonewall recommended it as one of the most inclusive Pride events ever. And so for us, By Pride at the time, it was a huge success. Fantastic. So did you march Joanne Lockwood: through London? Did you or was it just a static event? So Michael Cerasi: it was a static event. We also marched at Pride of London as well, but our event was hosted with two stages, so I was head of stages, so my responsibility was kind of managing what was the performers on the main stage and also the speakers on the I Am Proud stage. I also spoke myself on my own coaching with a talk called By Leaving Yourself and Dream Big. So you have to mind the pun there. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, by leaving yourself. No, I got that. So you manage two stages. Have you got a background in rock star management or that or dealing with divas? Well, before Michael Cerasi: working in health and wellbeing, my background was in fashion, so I worked on fashion show production. I worked on, for example, Martin Margiela's Show or London Fashion Week. So in these types of events, you're used to working with very high profile people. Joanne Lockwood: So any big name bands we would have heard of that were there, or up and coming artists, were they? So Michael Cerasi: for us, it wasn't necessarily getting the biggest names. We definitely wanted more by representation, but we did have some kind of famous bistars or LGBT groups and so it was a really magical day and for me, just to see a whole room of Bi people all under one roof was really awesome. Back in Joanne Lockwood: my youth, I was in the RAF for a few years and I used to look after entertainment for the Nafi, for the non commissioned bar club, for the station I was at. And one of my kind of claims to fame is that I booked Katrina and The Waves a number of times. 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 used to 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 booked them several times. I never classed myself as a friend, but more a good acquaintance, because we were kind of familiar. So to see them succeed in the Eurovision and see them still going is quite proud of that. And I've got their first album. I used to have their first album on vinyl, which is a pre production press with a couple of typos. So, yeah, I was quite pleased about that. So now I've got memories of my own stage production and stuff like that as well. That's really fantastic and great that Michael Cerasi: you met those people and you could follow on with By Pride because we had two stages, each stage was 7 hours each, so it meant that we were organising 14 hours of content, so it was a lot of pressure. With it also being the first event, I'm pleased that we got a lot of very good reviews. Joanne Lockwood: Yes, I know. It's like when you're doing something the first time and only time, it's not like you can say, right, that was brilliant, we'll do it again tomorrow and the day after, the day after. It's very hard to learn the lesson because even next year something will be different. It'll be a slightly different 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 to change 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 and they got on with no hats off to you. That must have been a big learning exercise. And it was Michael Cerasi: wonderful to work with the team at By Pride as well. And I've made some friends for life. From the people that I've met there. I can imagine those sort of things. Joanne Lockwood: They're quite bonding, aren't they? That shared experience is really 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 Cerasi: September. The aim of the magazine is to amplify the voices of LGBT Plus and its allies. We want to make it a really inclusive magazine and share the stories of real people. So it could be, let's say, your next door neighbour giving their story about their, for example, I don't know, gender identity or their sexual orientation, or it could be nothing to do with that, it could be anything under the sun. But we just want to have a magazine that is a home somewhere, a safe space where people feel welcome and able to kind of learn about each other and interact. Joanne Lockwood: So have you got any guests lined up, features lined up? Michael Cerasi: Well, if you don't mind me sharing, we're hoping to feature you in our first issue. Joanne Lockwood: If I ever pull my finger out and get it back. To Michael Cerasi: which I'm really excited to include you because you have such a powerful story in all of your work that you're doing. And I can't wait to kind of see the article that you write and the content that you share with us. Joanne Lockwood: That's a good bit of chasing up, isn't it? I can't wait to the article I'm going to write either. Maybe I need some coaching on how to unlock that. Michael Cerasi: But also we're a small team now. We're all volunteers and I've spoken to them about you and they're also very excited to hear more about your story. And it's great that in these difficult times of the pandemic, we're all open to kind of offer our time for free to make this online magazine a reality and to help others along the way. I'm really thankful that my team is there to make it happen. Joanne Lockwood: 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, what that 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 listeners what being bi means to you? Michael Cerasi: Being bi means that I'm attracted to anyone beyond gender. So it doesn't necessarily just mean that I'm attracted to just men or just women or both. And it's not trans exclusionary either. A lot of people make that assumption and it doesn't exclude non binary people either. I think for a person that's bi, they're just open to any gender in that sense, but different bi people have their own definitions of what being bi is. But this is my personal definition. Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: And whenever I talk about identities, it's how you identify and how you would describe it. That's the important thing. And other people, as you say, may have a different definition, but no one should be arguing about who's more right on that. It's about how you feel and how I feel about my identity because I get myself confused about whether I'm straight, bi or pan because I'm still married to the person I married 30 years ago. Their gender and sexuality hasn't changed, but my gender has. And people get very curious about how I now identify and I would rather not identify as anything other than married. It's kind of my identity as married to a spouse who's a woman. But I often locked onto using pansexual as a term pan because that, for me, if you get the Wikipedia definition out, pan is more how you describe your definition of bi, which is more of a contemporary identity way of describing bisexuality. So I was curious about how you saw yourself in relation to the term pan. Maybe for me, I view bi and Michael Cerasi: pan interchangeably. I would very much be open to calling myself pan as well. But the thing is that when you tell people a lot of people have no idea what pan is, so that's why it just tends to be more comfortable to tell people I'm bi, whereas I probably identify more as pan. On the Wikipedia Joanne Lockwood: definitions, it's more pan, but your definition of by is pan or pan buy. So it's just that you're comfortable. I get what you mean. Sometimes you've got to go for the easy phrase to fit in with the masses, haven't you? Michael Cerasi: Unfortunately, as you mentioned, there's a lot of stigma around being bi. Also even more stigma about being bi and male. So I've been told to my face by people that bisexuality doesn't exist, or that I'm just on the way to becoming gay, or that I'm too greedy, or that I could never be faithful, or that I'm just doing it for the attention, which is I personally believe that it's very sad. And I guess my response to that is, I do exist. I'm not the Tooth Fairy or Father Christmas, and it's something that people should become more aware of in many cases. And I thought being trans was complicated. I mean, Joanne Lockwood: it sounds like you've got the same sort of challenges. People think I'm the Tooth Fairy sometimes as well. Michael Cerasi: I think the trans community and the bi community can help each other out in many ways and support each other in terms of raising awareness for each other. And my purpose is to help kind of educate people in understanding sexual orientation or not judging people from what they might have heard. Joanne Lockwood: Is that why you call yourself the Rainbow Coach? Is it? Michael Cerasi: So I chose the Rainbow Coach because, first of all, a rainbow is extremely colourful and joyous. Second of all, it has the myth of going towards a pot of gold if you follow the rainbow. And so I quite like that idea of kind of following your journey to find your pot of gold. And your pot of gold could be whatever goal you give yourself. Also, obviously, because I specialise with working with the LGBT plus community, the rainbow flag is symbolic for them in terms of Pride and it's what makes up the Pride flag itself. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I'm not sure how many people realise this, but the Pride flag or the LGBT flag or the rainbow flag isn't actually the same colours as a rainbow in the sky, is it? The Pride flag has six colours. It used to have pink, but apparently it was hard to get hold of or something at the time when they're producing them, so they dropped it. So there was a hot pink in there, wasn't there? Michael Cerasi: There was a hot pink and a turquoise. Yeah. And they blended those Joanne Lockwood: 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 Pride flag. And people often don't get confused 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 Cerasi: turquoise. And I'm half Turkish, so it's the colour from my country. Joanne Lockwood: Is that where the name comes from? Is it Frenchism of Turkey? Michael Cerasi: Yeah. I believe that it was derived from Turkey. Exactly. Because turquoise sounds Joanne Lockwood: French to me. In my sort of language, it would. Be pronounced originally as chocoise, which is in French. Michael Cerasi: That's right. And that's of Joanne Lockwood: Turkey. Exactly. From Turkish origin. Okay. Well, if nothing else, this podcast, we've heard that today where Turkey came from. Where turquoise came from, but also Michael Cerasi: now we also have an even more inclusive flag with the brown and black colour that has been added. Or there's another flag as well, with the trans symbol as well. So there are several flags that we can be using. Joanne Lockwood: There's lots of debate within the we call it a community. We call it in the LGBT population, whichever word sort of seems to fit about these different flags and whether we're being too inclusionary now or whether we've complicated things and supporting everybody, I'm sure that debate will go far onto the future and probably nothing we could contribute right here. But yeah, there are lots of I did some research myself on Pride flags around gender identities, and I'm trying to pull together a collection of them. And just looking at different identities is such a lot of different ways people do relate to their own gender, from grey to demi and various other ones, which I think when we started this off, this conversation earlier, we talked about how you identify how you describe yourself. And if there's not a phrase that describes you in the way you describe yourself, then this is where people are evolving these identities to allow them to feel more comfortable with that as a definition of who they are. I think as long as the flags Michael Cerasi: bring us together rather than see us apart, that's the main goal in itself. Just more like the Olympic Joanne Lockwood: flags rather than the football team flags, where people are competing. This is kind of competing together as a collaborative sort of celebration of each other rather than against each other. Michael Cerasi: Exactly. We should celebrate each other rather than pit ourselves against each other. Joanne Lockwood: So what things have you overcome in your life, then, when you coached yourself? Kind of things have you overcome? Michael Cerasi: I would say I found it challenging in terms of accepting who I am and choosing to lead an authentic life. I guess because of the stigma around being bisexual, it took me a long time, first of all, to learn about what bisexual was when I was growing up. It wasn't a term that was used very commonly, and also because of the stigma around it, it probably delayed me into coming to terms with my own sexual orientation. And so today, now, for me, it's a constant choice to kind of live authentically and to be myself. And it's something that I now have the luxury to be able to choose. Joanne Lockwood: Is the word authentic authenticity? Is it an overused and abused term? It is, because I've seen what I would call influencers and role models on Instagram and YouTubers, using the fact they're authentic as an excuse to be rude, to be nasty to people. So how would you sort of see authentic should be seen? I Michael Cerasi: think authentic should be seen as having the power to be your true self and to be unique and to for example, we started off the call about superpowers. So knowing your own superpowers and being able to embrace those as well. Of course any word can be used in the wrong way and unfortunately, authentic can, as you've said online, be used in a negative sense. And a lot of people do use it on social media. But I think it's because we didn't have the awareness before or we didn't necessarily allow ourselves to be authentic in the past and this is now. We're in a time of change in that and people are slowly opening themselves up to their own identities. So Joanne Lockwood: it's not an excuse to be rude. It's not an excuse to hide behind my authenticity or actually what they're saying is authentically. 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 Cerasi: say there's never an excuse to be rude, to be honest. You'd hope people wouldn't be. Joanne Lockwood: But I've seen many conversations on some of these platforms where people are using the word they're banning around the word authentic like some sort of right to express themselves because they're just being authentic about what they think. Well, obviously maturity comes into that lived experience. Not wishing to put other people down and thinking about the good things that come out of authenticity, which is about understanding about self expression, understanding about identity, understanding speaking from the eye, speaking from with your passion and speaking with your own desires is more the authenticity I would start from. Yes, I think it's also remembering that authenticity comes Michael Cerasi: from you. So a lot of people might think that for me, as a life coach, I'm just going to tell them what authenticity is and then give them the step by step plan of how to become more authentic. In actual fact, that's not the case. I could spend 1000 hours with a client and I still won't know them as well as they know themselves. And in that being said, they might choose specific stories to tell me and might not tell me their complete self. So I work with my clients to be able to enable them or to be able to uplift them, to be able to give them more recognition of themselves, to be able to feel empowered and to understand that authenticity within themselves. Joanne Lockwood: That is really powerful. I don't think I discovered what authenticity meant to me until I transitioned. At that point there, I think I was so brought up on the escalator of life, just heading in a direction that I didn't ever stop in question who I was, what my values were. And I think that's often the case for many people, that unless they have some checkpoint in their life where it causes them to reflect that you off blindly follow this course without even thinking about it. Michael Cerasi: I think we mentioned challenges earlier on. I think for me, I did have challenges in terms of accepting my sexual orientation, but also in terms of accepting myself for who I am. I personally am not the most masculine of men, and it's something that I did try to hide for a very long amount of time and not embrace my feminine side because I felt that at the time, it just wasn't perceived very well. And that's something that I've worked on in myself to kind of be more open to my feminine side and embrace. That Joanne Lockwood: 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 happy by Pride pre community, your workshop on thriving and change and challenge and uncertainty and your podcast coming out. What does kind of like the future hold for you? Where are you going with your life? Or are you just wandering around, see what happens? So Michael Cerasi: I'm hoping to help more and more people with my coaching. My coaching is all done online, so it means that I'm able to access more and more people. And even during this kind of corona pandemic time, we're still able to communicate in that sense. And I'd like to be able to, with the magazine, raise more awareness of the LGBTQ plus community. And I want to be able to kind of grow my network to be able to help more people. Joanne Lockwood: Fantastic. So people are trying to get hold of you. How do people get hold of you? Obviously, you'd welcome people to connect with you on things like LinkedIn or Instagram. How do they find you? Michael Cerasi: So, yeah, they're welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn. I have my website, https://TheRainbowCoach.com, or they can connect with me on Instagram at The underscore "_" Rainbow underscore "_" Coach. Joanne Lockwood: And your name is Cerasi, which is C-E-R-A-S-I. For those who are trying to Google yours or type you into LinkedIn. Yeah, that's right. It actually means cherry tree in Michael Cerasi: another language. Oh, wow, that's beautiful. So michael tarassi. That's right. I hope so. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. That's really great. Well, many. Thank you, Michael. I'm sure that the listeners will agree there's much to ponder there and take inspiration from, and I really appreciate everyone's time for tuning in and listening today. So please do subscribe to keep updated on future episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast that's B-I-T-E-S. Please tell your friends, please tell your colleagues. I have a number of exciting guests lined up and I'm sure you'll be inspired by them over the next weeks and months, whenever this lockdown may end. So remember, if you'd like to be a guest, please let me know. You're most welcome. And if you have any feedback or suggestions, then please do send me a message to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk - that's jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk for any of the future shows or how we can improve. So it's been a pleasure. And if you hadn't worked out already, my name is Joanne Lockwood, and I've been your host, the Inclusion Bites Podcast today. Catch you next time.