S1E2: Michal Augustini | What's in a name?
[Justin]
Welcome to the Creating Belonging Podcast. Today, I'm recording our first guest episode, and I'm really excited that I have Michal Augustini or Michal Augustini. I have to say both pronunciations of your name given what hopefully the story we'll get into and talk about.
But Michal is what I would say one of the hottest up-and-coming photographers in London right now. So look out for Michal Augustini in London and his photography. But Michal, if you wouldn't mind, just introduce yourself in your words.
[Michal Augustini]
Okay, okay. Hello, everybody. My name is Michal.
I'm a freelance photographer, music photographer currently. Very proud to say that because it's been just about a year that I've been doing full-time.
[Justin]
Michal, it's awesome to have you here. Thank you for agreeing to be my first guest on the Creating Belonging Podcast. And before we get into the hot topic of the day, which is creating belonging, I want to make sure that people can follow you on Instagram and see your amazing work.
So how can people find you?
[Michal Augustini]
So my handle is Augustini.photo, A-U-G-U-S-T-I-N-I.photo. Easy. And my website, the same thing. And just to make things more exciting, I'll be releasing my first debut book in a couple of days, slash maybe a week.
So this will be coming out. So definitely check it out. I will be announcing everything on Instagram and selling to my website.
[Justin]
Yeah, I'm excited to see it. I know we saw the preview a few weeks back when we were in a meeting. So I'm excited to see the real thing.
Awesome. Well, I wanted Michal to join us on the Creating Belonging Podcast. I've known Michal for a handful of years.
We've worked together. And I know that, so Michal grew up in Slovakia and then moved to London, what, seven years ago, was it? Yeah, 2015.
When I knew Michal, he had been working for an American-based company, albeit global, American-based company, living in London as a native of Slovakia. So when we talk about belonging, I had a feeling that Michal might have some interesting stories, kind of in all that intersectionality of his identity that he brings into these different spaces and communities. And one thing, I'm gonna jump right into what is kind of my favorite story that we had talked about, which is your name.
So your name spelled M-I-C-H-A-L. I remember when we met, there was discussion like, oh, does he go by Michal or Mikael? And then I remember asking you, and you're like, yeah, it doesn't bother me, like whichever.
And I found that interesting because a lot of people can be very protective of the pronunciation of their name, right? And so I found that interesting. And then you eventually told me a story, and I'm not gonna repeat it.
But the reason I bring it up is because I think about our names, just to give some kind of relation to belonging in this. I think about our names as like one of the things that is like our signature stamp on our identity, because we talk about identity in relation to belonging. And I think our name is like that stamp.
It's like the number one thing that is us. It's what people call us on a regular basis. I wanna hear your story about kind of growing up and the way that you, just name pronunciation.
And then even some of the stuff that I think we talked about, name pronunciation in- In Slovakia, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[Michal Augustini]
So interesting fact is that when I came to London, so many people out of respect immediately were asking me, like, how do you pronounce your name? And I always introduced myself in English, hi, I'm Michal, and I never really thought about it. Like I didn't give it a second thought at all, but some people were like, it's not spelled correctly, right?
Like Michal is with E and your name is different, so how do you pronounce it? And I was really hesitant many times to tell people because the pronunciation of my name in different language, just it's, for people it's hard to pronounce. My pronunciation name is Michal.
And in Slovakia, it's kind of common name. But the thing is that not that many people call me Michal in Slovakia, because in Slovakia, we have nearly each name, not all of them, but my name is specific like that and has three different versions. So the neutral one, Michal, which is on my, you know, on a birth certificate, right?
But my mom would call me Miško, which is like the tiny, like imagine like a softer name is Miško. Your girlfriend would call you Miško and people will call you if you're little, right? They will call you Miško.
And your friends, on the other hand, would like choose a tougher name. So the tougher version of Michal is Mišo. So it's again, so it's Miško, Michal, Mišo.
So these are the three names I grew up having, right? I knew I'm Michal, but then not that many people would call me that. It would be either Mišo or Miško.
If my mom used Mišo, which is the tougher thing, I knew that I did something naughty or something like that. You know, like that puts you on, like my mom is calling me like that. And she really hated when, you know, my friends came and rang the bell and said, hey, is Mišo at home?
And my mom hated that because she doesn't like the tougher version of my name. And there are most of the names in Slovakia have those like a softer version and harder version. There are just a few of them that doesn't.
Or, you know, at school, when we were young kids learning English and we're being taught like, okay, the basic sentences. So what's your name? My name is, and you say your name.
The teachers in Slovakia would kind of transfer your name to English, right? So a name like Michal would be Michal. Name like Tomas, Slovakian name would be Tom.
Martin would be Martin. But like, you know, some of the versions will be slightly different. George, you know, it will be Juraj.
And in English would be George. So everybody at school, when we entered the English classroom, it would be, you know, you are pronouncing your name as an English speaking person. So my name, every time when I would be using English language would be Michal.
So everywhere I went internationally would be like, hey, my name is Michal. I would never even put it into my mouth that I would say, hi, my name is Michal. It just doesn't sound natural to me.
So yeah, this is how I presented myself or always will probably present myself. And people are very curious about that. And then I thought about the history, why I'm saying that, because some people are like, but that's not your name.
[Justin]
Okay, so random thoughts. What if someone called you Mike?
[Michal Augustini]
Well, that's fine. Yeah, I have people who call me Mike. Yeah, most- Oh, really?
Yeah, some American folks would call me, hey, Mike.
[Justin]
Oh, wow. So like no consent, just like decided to shorten your name.
[Michal Augustini]
I mean, I'm not sure if there was any, probably there was this discussion where I said, you call me whatever you want. And he was like, is it okay if we call you Mike? And it was like, fair enough.
So I know every time Nick spoke to me, he's like, hey, Mike. I was like, okay.
[Justin]
So I don't know why I just, I found that fascinating, in the fluidity of acceptance that you have around the way that people pronounce your name. And it's, when I've thought about it, I almost like think of it as this gift that your instructors gave you when you were younger, giving you that fluidity of the pronunciation of your name so that you didn't have this defense mechanism come up. Like, hey, I'm just gonna go by whatever and it's cool.
You know, as long as it's not offensive, right?
[Michal Augustini]
Yeah, but I have to say, like, on the other hand, it made me really be self-conscious when I would be speaking to say, you know, like coming to London and feeling that respect from others, asking me what my name is, how my name is pronounced and stuff. So then I would be more and more conscious of how other names, because I really haven't thought of it, you know? Like, I was like, I don't care, kind of thing.
But then I realized people really do care. So I started caring more about different names, different nationalities, you know? When something is spelled the way that you're like, oh, I have no idea how to pronounce that, I would have the courtesy of like, hey, can you tell me how to really pronounce it and really make the effort to, because I see that this is important for people and not everyone is like me that's like, I don't care.
[Justin]
When I almost see it, I'm gonna transition a little bit and we'll philosophize. I almost see it as related to, you know, gender and pronoun usage, because so often we assume usage of pronouns and we assume based on various things, right? I know of, you know, an individual who I used to work with and her name was Jordan, but because Jordan's probably more typically or people are more used to Jordan being a male name or a masculine name that, you know, she would often be called he in emails.
And so she actually, she was using pronouns in her signature line before it was like in vogue or recognized just because for herself, she wanted to clarify, you know?
[Michal Augustini]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[Justin]
And so it's interesting how, you know, there's the conversation around pronoun usage being like, so a part of quote, woke culture. Being respectful.
[Michal Augustini]
I think it's very useful. Yeah. I think it's very useful that people use that.
[Justin]
So it's interesting, you know, heightening that awareness that you have of like checking in with people on pronunciation of their name, you can be similar and as respectful as checking in on someone's preferred pronouns, right?
[Michal Augustini]
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And it's really, I think it's essential these days to have that because somebody's identity is built on that.
[Justin]
It's good to check in with people and call people, be respectful and call people what they wanna be called.
[Michal Augustini]
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
[Justin]
So I wanna transition a little bit and I wanna see if I can get another story out of you. You know, we talked about the creating belonging model. So in the first episode, I outlined the creating belonging model that exists in my book.
We've got essentially belonging sitting at the intersection of authenticity and acceptance. And then we've got our four areas within the creating belonging model. So when we're low on authenticity, low on acceptance, we're in recluse.
High on authenticity, low on acceptance, we're in overbearing. If we're high on acceptance, low on authenticity, we're in minimizing. And then when we're high on authenticity, high on acceptance, we're in belonging.
And one of the things I prompted you with before today was, hey, what other stories can you think of that you might have sitting in one of those areas of the creating belonging model? So I'm curious, what other experiences in life can you think of?
[Michal Augustini]
Coming to London, coming to London as a Slovakian, coming to the workplace and trying to find my place, I would say, in a workplace. And it's always like a bit of a tricky situation, at least for me, because I find myself most of the time, like an odd person, like not the mainstream person, if you see what I mean. Like generally when I joined the company in London, I remember coming to the office and I didn't know how, like the, you know, suddenly you start feeling the vibe of the office, right?
Like, and one of the main things in the office was sports, football, like UK, right? Football. What's your team?
Who are your fans? Like, I was like, no idea. Are you Arsenal?
Are you Tottenham? Are you this? I was like, nope, I'm not in football.
And you know, my question begs, like what kind of music do you listen to? And they were like, oh yeah, all sorts, blah, blah. I was like, what kind of concerts do you go to?
Not that many people went to concerts. So I found myself in this kind of odd spot where most of the people were, you know, following sports, following these things. And you want to try to kind of belong, right?
You try to kind of merge into that, so you're trying to find these things. But I remember that on my first lunch on the first day where everybody was there and it was like, okay, we have this football club going on. We're all playing football.
And I was like, great. Good for you guys. And they were all expecting me to be like, yeah, yeah, let's play football.
I was like, nope, thank you. But I found myself belonging into that group of doing yoga classes and at work. It was very, very different to the kind of mainstream, everyone in the office, what they were doing.
And sometimes I found it a little bit difficult, but not that, you know, and I was like, you know what? I need to find my tribe somewhere else. Work is work.
I work in this environment. I get along with people. This is not about if I like football or not.
It's about the work we're doing.
[Justin]
When you started working at that organization four years before we worked together. And so I think it was a very different environment at that point in time. I'm curious.
So where would you say, like at work, because I think a lot of the conversations our listeners are probably looking for is some of those work related, like how to create more belonging at work. So if you were to think about where you sat in that moment, the way that you described it, like high or low on authenticity, high or low on acceptance to then kind of plot yourself, where would you say?
[Michal Augustini]
I think it was, I never hid in my authenticity. I would say, you know, I was authentic, but I definitely was, you know, kind of, I was playing the other people's game. So if they were talking about football, I started to kind of be interested in, not necessarily football, but I wouldn't be like, oh, tell me more or what is it?
And, you know, so try to be interested in others and how they, what the tribe was about. But I knew I'm not interested in specifically football where I'd be like, I was interested in, okay, why are you having this conversation? Who is who?
You're trying to get to know other people. So you're always curious, asking questions about that. So this is where I found myself, but like another example that I can think of.
And I guess that's a really interesting conversation to compare with your experience as well. But I remember when I came to London, I made a life decision that I will stop drinking. I will stop, pause alcohol.
Several reasons, health reasons, stuff like that. But what is the best way how to get to know your colleagues? You have to go out and drink, right?
That there's, that's the kind of like norm everywhere, I feel like, specifically UK or in Slovakia, you know, everybody goes out, has a beer and stuff. And I would definitely be at the bar ordering soda and lime just to pretend I'm drinking gin and tonic, right? Because I didn't want to have the conversation of why are you not drinking?
Because I had those conversations so many times at the beginning when I came here. And they're like, oh my God, why are you not drinking? Why are you doing this?
And it's just like, I don't get, like why are you so interested if I'm drinking or not? And especially like when you're going out at work occasions and people are getting, sorry for this, they go shit-faced, right? Like company expenses or something.
But so this is where I found myself that I was hiding my identity. I was many times not presenting who I was because it just becomes like an unnecessary conversation. But many times I have to say, then more and more I got confident about it.
I was just like, I'm not drinking, that's it. Dot, like I don't need to explain myself to people, you know, like, so that I would say it was one of the aspects where I felt like I was just trying to kind of belong, but I had to kind of fake, you know, that I'm holding a different drink than I was really holding.
[Justin]
You know, it's an interesting one. I, a while back, worked for a UK-based company. And so like, I can confirm the drinking culture is real in London.
And, you know, it's an interesting dynamic because I, the balance of like, I don't want to tell people like, hey, look, you can't drink, you can't go out, you can't do what you enjoy. But also in the work, in the context of work, in like, how are you making sure that others are comfortable and feel like they belong in that moment and in that place? You know, it's an interesting shift because I'm assuming that in general, you'd be comfortable going out to the pub.
It shifts when like, what are you drinking? Why aren't you drinking? I'm now going to interrogate you about your drinking habits.
[Michal Augustini]
Yeah, yeah. That's what I loved the, you know, when we even spoke about like team building activities, I don't find like team building going out to a bar and having an open check there. I don't find this as a team building activity.
I don't, I literally like from a professional standpoint of view and, you know, I mean like we always found like activities that would include everyone that would somehow go for the fact that not everybody needs to drink or not everybody needs to be the person who wants to go out and having an activity at the bar or something, right? So it's always finding what is the right activity so you can include everyone in there, so you can create small groups and you do it at work and find some really good activities that are connecting people rather than just like, yeah, go ahead and it will sort itself out, right? Like people will just bond.
Yeah, yeah. But then next day you come to work and you see like, yeah, 10 people bonded, but the other, I don't know, 50 around didn't because they had to leave because of kids or they, you know, like all sorts of things. But then you can see how the kind of groups were created at work that you were like, okay, these are the buddies, this is the core group or these are the old people who were there for ages.
If it didn't go with what they were interested in or what they were doing, then you were not included in that club, if you see what I mean.
[Justin]
And I think it's, you know, a lot of the, what we have to think about is the difference between a sanctioned work event, you know, like this is team building, this is how we will get to know each other versus like a few people from work going out and having, you know, like having a social life outside of work with coworkers, right? And then, you know, depending on what that relationship is at work, the important, you know, power dynamics with those people, whether that's appropriate or inappropriate, but it's definitely something I think to think about, you know, I talk about in the book, my story about belonging is, and I talked about it in the opening episode. So this is a great segue from that in designing events, designing spaces where everyone feels welcome and like it was made for them.
I think that's when we really pushed to the height of belonging for folks. Cause it sounds like on the average day, you weren't like deep in recluse because you felt like you could show up as yourself and you weren't in overbearing because you weren't kind of like disrespecting others or, you know, applying your values to them. And then conversely, you weren't minimizing cause you were attempting to engage at least on a surface level and things that they were interested in, right?
So it's like, what I'm thinking of, I had a conversation with someone yesterday and they were struggling with the creating belonging model because they're like, well, isn't there a kind of like a spectrum? Like I'm not just all recluse or I'm not all overbearing. And I agree with you, like we're not 100% anything ever.
So, you know, it sounds like you were like in the middle, you know, up into belonging, not like super high in belonging, but like not in a bad place.
[Michal Augustini]
Yeah, yeah. And I think it's also, if you look at it through timeline, I would say it changes a lot. You know, you're going through, I visualize it as a, you're going through stages or you can go through one stage, you go into another and so on.
I think the problem is when you get stuck in one.
[Justin]
I've always experienced you as very authentic and very open and honest and appreciate that. And I think too, your comments about it, you know, that belonging shifting or changing, I think if we relate it to team development and we understand that when a team changes, when they add people, when they lose people, the dynamics of that team has to go back to the beginning and go back through those stages of development. And there's probably, I don't know, I love the conversation thinking about belonging because there's probably also an impact too, but where we sit in the creating belonging model when the dynamics of the group change.
So I can think of, if I reflect on our experience together, when I joined the organization that we worked in, you know, you had been through multiple iterations of that organization. And I can even see an evolution of, you know, when it comes to work product, quality of work, tire team was remote, sitting in literally different parts of the world. And I can almost see an evolution of you in our work together and kind of seeing where you sit in, you know, leaning back into that belonging, at least within our immediate team.
I'm curious if you feel that or what your thoughts are.
[Michal Augustini]
Yeah, I mean, I always felt that it was very inclusive and especially in our team, we had really open conversations. We knew everybody was different in ways and respected that. I remember we had a colleague who was more, you know, quiet, but I talked to a lot, you know?
So in my head, I was like, okay, just hold on a second, and give the space to others so that we are a team, right? Like we, you and I, we could chat for hours, right? And there were people who would just be listening on mute, you know?
And then you're like, okay, okay, so let's give them the spotlight for a bit. I had to like consciously make that, but it's all about awareness, right? Awareness of others, awareness of others' needs, and being very respectful in it.
And I felt that that respect was there.
[Justin]
So number one, I swear that this podcast is not just like a celebration of the teams that I've worked on, just for everyone. But what I would say, what's interesting about that team in particular, because there was, I think the fact that regardless of the pandemic, we would have been remote anyway, but then, you know, lay the pandemic on top of that. And for a lot of the time that we worked together, and it almost seems like where some people think that remote work makes belonging and team building harder, I almost felt like in our case, because we were all very different, like I genuinely enjoy hanging out with everyone on the team, but I also, I think it would be very different if we were all co-located, right?
Because we are so different that we would still like, I don't know, like it would be different. So anyway, I'm just like, it's this recognition that I have that when done right, creating belonging in teams can actually be helped by that distance.
[Michal Augustini]
Yeah, yeah, in some ways, definitely. And I would like on the flip coin, I would say that it can, depending on the mix of the team, right? We were one mix of the team, but I can't imagine that in other teams it might be the right opposite.
[Justin]
So I think the moral of the story is whether in-person or virtual, there are elements that can promote belonging or elements that can destroy belonging. It's understanding the environment that you're working in and then also being conscious to intentional. I use the word intentional so much, being intentional about what we're creating within those teams.
[Michal Augustini]
Also, if I may add just one thing that I remember when we were doing the insights discovery thing, right? When we discovered our team's colors, right? It gives you, I'm a visual person, gave me so much sense.
I'd be like, okay, this person, blue energy, this person, green energy, this person, yeah, we have the same. So suddenly you understood the mix. At least for me, it was like an eye-opening thing of like, I had a feeling about these things, but when you're remote and you just have chats for an hour with someone, you don't necessarily know everything, but those tools are very helpful to then understand that mix because you'll be like, oh, somebody is more analytical, somebody is more probably introverted or focused on details, blah, blah.
So suddenly like, okay, you can respect that person in that way and give them the opportunity to shine in different situations than you would normally do if you did not have that information.
[Justin]
I love those types of assessments. And I think there's, some people love them, some people hate them, some people are in the middle. And I think that as long as we understand that we are more than a set of four colors or one color, we're more than that and we're more than what can be described in some descriptive profile when we understand that, but we use them as a tool to understand our differences and to be able to appreciate those differences and how we show up.
Insights Discovery is absolutely my favorite tool of all of those, but I think they all have their merits. And I think I'm biased because I've been facilitating Insights Discovery for several years.
[Michal Augustini]
Yeah, but I guess it's about, it's like a tool, right? Like it's not revealing any super secrets. It's just the tool, like a screwdriver, right?
Like you can use it in very different ways. And I think those tools are helpful, right? They can take that information and it's gonna help you.
It's not putting people in a box. It's not doing that. It's just giving you some additional information that you can use to your advantage and to other people's advantage to promote belonging, to create the environment that accepts everyone for who they are and promotes their strengths.
[Justin]
It's all about pushing into acceptance, which is understanding or working to understand others and accepting them for who they are, accepting that not everyone's like us and accepting them even if there are things that we don't understand about them. That's one of the messages that I want this work to get out so much because I think it's something that's undervalued. 100%, 100%.
Well, I think that's a good note for us to close on. Michal, I wanna thank you so much for being my first podcast guest on the Creating Belonging podcast. We'll be releasing new episodes every two weeks.
Our final episode will be a LinkedIn Live, which then we will repackage and publish as the final podcast. So Michal, I'm gonna get that on your calendar because I'm gonna have an assortment of guests across the podcast and would love for you to join us in that final discussion for the season anyway.
[Michal Augustini]
Amazing, amazing. Looking forward to that.
[Justin]
Thank you. And Michal's also a new father. So I hope you go take a nap.
[Michal Augustini]
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know if you can hear that but my kid is screaming in the background.
[Justin]
No, we can't hear it.
[Michal]
That's kind of my duty calling that. Thank you very much. Thank you.
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