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Toni Reece: We are now officially being recorded for the Get Inspired! Project.  Thank you very much, Michelle, for joining on this project and agreeing to be interviewed.  Before we begin with the questions, can you just take a couple of seconds and introduce yourself and tell us who you are and what you do?

Michelle Casto: Absolutely.  Yes, my name is Michelle Casto, and I am known as Bright Michelle.  I am a soul coach, which means I work with people from the inside out in making life changes in their careers and starting businesses, and I am a big believer in personal transformation and the reality that we can create the life of our dreams.

Toni: Wow, that sounds very exciting!  How long have you been doing that?

Michelle: Actually, 15 years, and I have been a writer for about as long as that as well.

Toni: Oh my gosh … well, I want to jump in here and just start with the very first question which is, if you had to think about who you inspired, who do you inspire and how do you do that?

Michelle: Well, the people that I seem to work with the best are people that have been reading self-help books and been doing inner work for a while, and they are really ready to apply what they know.  And so, people that are going through career changes, for example … they may not know what it is that they are to do, they just know there is something missing, there is something more.  And so, what I do is that I inspire them and speak to them and coach to them at the soul level so that they really get in touch with what is on the inner inside at the deepest level of their soul that wants to come out and be expressed, and we really do a lot of soul searching and digging to excavate the wisdom of their soul; and from that inspiration, they are inspired to make changes in their lives and make space for the purpose that really is calling them forth to be a bigger, brighter version of themselves.

Toni: Oh wow!  Now, when you say that how you do this is getting down to their soul level, how do you know when you have gotten there?

Michelle: Well, they get kind of like just a “yes” feeling within their body, and also it is accompanied by a great feeling of excitement and joy and just this possibility that, yeah, I can really live this kind of life or do that thing.  And then the other sign is that there is a little bit of fear, like oh my gosh, what am I going to do, what does that mean, how is that going to change me?  And so, we are not used to living at our highest level of our potential, but people are starting to learn to, and they are starting to step into that.  So as we get more comfortable with each level of ourselves that we actually can manifest, that fear tends to kind of follow us until eventually we just look at it and go “oh, that is just a sign that I am getting ready to have a breakthrough,” and then we keep on going and keep on going.

Toni: How do you … I know this is probably a very complicated process, but how do you go about that?  Is there a certain technique that you follow?

Michelle: You know, it is very inspired actually.  I just follow kind of the guidance of my own connection to source with their connection to source, and we kind of dance together through a coaching process; it is nothing mystical or anything.  It is very practical.  It is really just asking the right questions.  I mean, many of us have not really asked ourselves the questions that really open us up to what is possible.  And so a good coach really knows the right questions to ask so that your soul starts to do the searching and starts to bring things to the light that maybe you put on hold when you were a little girl, or somehow those dreams just got lost in the business of life.  When we start to kind of bring those things out to the light again — and then of course we take action on them once we know what’s important to you — and really the process is very self-guided, and it is really how fast or how slow the client wants to move.  I mean, I have worked with some people for as little as 30 days and they have discovered their purpose and then they are off and running.  So it really just depends.

Toni: Now this leads into the second question, which is what do you do to help explore the potential in others; and I heard you use words like you help the client get to their purpose, just to discover their purpose, to excavate wisdom.  Does that mean the same thing for what you do in your life in inspiring others as far as exploring their potential?  Do they mean the same thing to you?

Michelle: Actually, it’s a great question you have, because I have quite a few self-discovery ebooks and products I put together, and I have noticed that they are very coaching in approach to the way they are written because they have journal assignments, self-awareness exercises, things to get people really involved in their own learning and self-discovery of themselves.  And so I think potential and self-understanding go very hand-in-hand together and the more that you know yourself, the more that you are called forth to be more of who you know yourself to be which enables you to reach more of your potential.  And really, coaching is very key to this, because it is really hard for us to see ourselves in all our glory.

I mean, many times we are more afraid of our brilliance than we are of some of the failures or mistakes we’ve made; we are more familiar with that.  But looking into the mirror and really seeing our greatness and our brilliance, that is a lot scarier; and so a coach can really hold up that mirror for you and say look at what you are capable of doing and help you to see.  Many times, when it comes to purpose, things that you have already done have prepared you to step into a bigger purpose in your life, but it is hard to see it when you are in the inside.

Toni: So if I understand you correctly, the inspiration and exploration that you do, the approaches that you take, really are about self-discovery, self-awareness, and coaching; and that self-discovery, self-awareness, and coaching that person to their purpose from your perspective — the way that you have answered this question — helps them to explore their own potential.  Did I get that pretty close?

Michelle: That was wonderful!  That was very well done, yes.  Absolutely, that is exactly it!

Toni: Fantastic!  So now let’s go to you, Michelle, what you need to be inspired.  What do you look for?  What inspires you?

Michelle: Well, other people definitely are the greatest source of inspiration for me and then, along with that, inspirational tools.  One of the biggest tools that I use besides meditations and music would be books, and there is just so much wisdom to be found in the world and, you know, we all have our favorite resource books that we go to when we are lost or confused or just need an answer, and I am a big believer in just picking one of your favorite books.  For me, it is A Course in Miracles; and let’s say I’m having a challenge in my business or a relationship, and I just open the book and lo and behold, the answer, the inspiration, the insight that I need to just remember is right there.  And that is what we need; we need a lot of remembering tools because all learning is just remembering what we already know, and so the thing is we get busy and we forget what we know, so we need a lot of reminders.

Toni: I see.  Can you give me an example — the book you spoke of, is a great example of one of the tools — but I really like as well the phrase “the remembering tools.”  Are there other remembering tools out there that help you when you need to be inspired and resources that you look for?  Can you give me another example of what those tools are?

Michelle: Yeah, absolutely.  I have two.  One is a journal; I mean, a journal is a great self-discovery tool, and often I will just review my journal to see how far I’ve come or to see, oh, I’m revisiting this same challenge, and just it brings awareness and insight immediately, and it is a wonderful tool for discovery.  And recently with social media, Twitter.  This is going to sound funny, but Twitter is a great remembering tool for me, because many times I will tweet or make comments or ask questions or send out inspirational messages and I will forget, and I will go back and review some of my tweets, and I’ll get re-inspired by some of my tweets and some of my friends, and what they say, and I just go, oh, that’s exactly what I needed to hear in that moment.  So that is a really modern tool that really works for me.

Toni: Well that’s fantastic!  And what do you need to explore your own potential, Michelle?  How do you go about that?  If you do a lot of self-discovery with the work that you do in inspiring others, what do you do for yourself in order to continuously explore your own potential?

Michelle: Well, two things.  One is I think people that are up to self-discovery and inspiration need a lot of self time, a lot of alone time to be with their thoughts and to be with, you know, sorting through their feelings and thoughts.  I spend a lot of time on the beach talking walks, and that is a really refreshing, refueling thing that I do for my own soul.  And then, of course, everyone needs coaches, so I have a personal coach and I have a business coach, and I have people that are my friends and mentors where we support each other, because people need people; and it helps us to remember who we really are when we forget, and someone can say, hey, you know, you’re up to your really big purpose … keep on, you can do this.  And that source of inspiration just can really get us through anything.

Toni: So, basically when you are looking to explore your own potential, you go back to your own being with yourself, being alone, exploring to understand what you need, you go to your coaches, you have to remember who you are, those types of things.  Those are the things that you reach for when you are trying to explore your own potential, correct?

Michelle: Yes.  And I think it is real easy, you know, the way I speak about it is I am a soul alignment coach, and a lot of people say well, what is alignment? Well, alignment is being true to yourself and remembering your purpose, remembering why you are here, and staying true to that, and we need alignment tools that help us to stay on course.

Toni: And some examples that you haven’t given already of those alignment tools would be …

Michelle: Yoga and exercise is a big one because I think we need to spend a lot of time in our bodies and keep healthy and fit.  Coaching, as I have already mentioned.  I also spend quite a bit of time learning and doing teleclasses and seminars and live events where you are immersed with other people that are up to the same kind of things you are.  I really believe that we evolve at the rate of the people that we are plugged into, and so I really strive to stay plugged into people that are living inspired lives.

Toni: Wow, that is really something. What I am hearing from you — and just allow me to clarify here — is that when you get to … you have talked about who you inspire and how and what you do in that inspiration business to also help them explore their own purpose and potential, and then what you need to be inspired as far as what you need to explore your own potential seems to be very much the same.  The whole self-awareness, the coaching, the mentoring, the alignment, to be with like-minded people; that also helps you to explore your own potential.  And then I would imagine, Michelle, does that also then tie you back into the inspiration business that you are doing?  That exploration that you go through, those tools, those alignment tools, the remembering tools, do they help you get back to the inspiration business and help you to explore other people’s potential?  Does that close that loop for you?

Michelle: Yeah, I like things to be mutual in my life.  Mutual relationships, and I think that, you know, when you are on purpose, you very much are feeding into what you are doing and who you are being are very much in alignment, and there is not a great … I say that the next great wave of work is not having these separate lives, the “work me” and the “home me”; no, it is like this new wave that we are coming into is a unified being and doing; of really expressing who we really are in our fullest potential.  So it absolutely helps the other and serves the other, and helps everyone to grow that is involved in that process.

Toni: Wow, that is really, really something.  I so appreciate you taking part in this Get Inspired! Project and sharing this sound bite, this little snapshot of your approach to inspiration as well as your needs for inspiration so that others can learn and also can benefit from your approaches, and I can’t tell you this interview has been wonderful and the information that you have given in this short amount of time is incredibly valuable, and I so thank you very much for that.

Michelle: It’s my pleasure, thank you.

Toni: You’re welcome, and I hope to talk to you soon, and thank you so very much again.

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For more information about Michelle Casto:  www.brightlightcoach.com

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