Melinda: Hi everyone, its Melinda Garvey with the CFPB at podcast. This week we have another great interview with an incredible role model. Stay tuned.
Melinda: Hello everyone, welcome to the see it to be a podcast. I'm your host Melinda Garvey, and as always we bring you incredible relatable role models every single week on our podcast and this week is no different. We have a wonderful woman doing really really incredible things in the women's empowerment space and everyone knows those are my favorite. Her name is Kasia Urbaniak, and she is the founder of The Academy, and it's all about women's empowerment, as I mentioned, so we're going to hear from her today so welcome. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Kasia: Thank you for having me.
Melinda: Absolutely. The first thing I'd like to do is just go way back. What was your big dream when you were growing up, what do you think you were going to be and how did you get on your path.
Kasia: Well, my parents are jazz musicians, and they came from Poland, at a time when it was very very difficult to get out of Poland, and they made a huge success, around the world. They were very unrealistic. And one of the things that they gave me is that sense of being unrealistic. So, the answer is I was very very very obsessed with the dune books, when I was quite young, and the dune books have a Secret Society of Women called the Bene Gesserit and the women who lead Bene Gesserit, called Reverend mothers, so what I wanted to do is found the real life. Secret Society been a desert on this earth, and be a Reverend Mother.
Melinda: All right, well, how'd that work out for you you built your own version of that right. That's right, yeah well so tell us your story and how are you finally made it to building your own secret society as it were.
Kasia: My not so secret secret.
Melinda: Not so secret anymore, right.
Kasia: So, in my unrealistic pursuit of something I read in a fictional book, I wanted to find the training that was available in the world that was closest to what I was seeing as these fiction superpowers so I went on a path to studying with some of the greatest spiritual masters and the ones that I was most drawn to were the Taoist ones because they seem to be able to do absolutely magical and remarkable things and in order to be able to pay for this. I worked as a dominatrix, and the incredible thing that happened, that was very unexpected. Was that what I was learning in the monasteries and convents, I ended up applying in the dungeon, and it was not intentional. It was that I was learning to read the body I was learning to diagnose organs I was learning to pick up the subtlest cues before somebody threw a punch for example in the martial training. So when I was working as a dominatrix and I had these submissives, I would start using the skills that I had been learning, and without even being conscious of it. This was all about knowing how to have power in a body based total energetic spiritual psychological way with another human being, to be able to influence them to be able to move them. And I ended up becoming obsessed with mastering this unique form of domination, that I was doing that was much more psychological and emotional than what I saw happening around me and it really influenced how I saw human beings and how I saw relations between men and women, whether they're professional or romantic.
Kasia: Then I met my business partner who worked for Doctors Without Borders and was in high conflict zones for a decade dodging bullets and vaccinating babies and as you know, our stories histories my story when we met we just couldn't stop talking and then we hit this point where we realized that there were so many moments where he had to institute like border checkpoints and situations where nobody speaks the same language but there are 14 year olds where they give 40 sevens and he has to get permission to build a field hospital there, he can't communicate, how does one communicate authority and power, and I started talking about my experiences in the dungeon using the Taoist practices that I've learned how do you communicate authority power status, how do you influence somebody when language isn't enough when there's a lot at stake, and through our conversations, it became really really apparent that these patterns, we saw we started exploring and experimenting with just the women that we knew around us inviting them to our living room and starting say hey try this try this try this what's, you know, getting couples in there and starting to talk about these invisible behavior and thought patterns that were really determining whether a woman would be able to actually land the message of what she wants and achieve what she wants to achieve. And that started becoming the basis of the curriculum of the school and then for, you know, a good six seven years, it was the women who came, who started asking for workshops, and so we sort of reluctantly in the beginning, started teaching, and the school itself became a laboratory to test and experiment what works, what doesn't work, what holds a woman back that's not talked about that's not external right and that's not just outside sexism, whereas the conditioning of a woman. These millennia, think about 2 million years or more millennia, where basically the highest achievement, a woman could make the only place where she could channel her ambition is to marry well, and the set of behaviors that are required the set of conditioning that's required in order to become a great candidate to be a good wife, and it's essentially all good girl conditioning is being accommodating not asking for too much being low maintenance being resourceful be responding to others in a timely fashion being responsive rather than proactive, all of these things, you know not asking all of these things that, you know, end up showing up in today's world.
Kasia: I was just talking about this incredible thing that happened a few years back when the tech jobs website. The creators of it started realizing how different the request of salary was in the same position between men and women. So they decided to publish a graph displaying what the average, ask was for a particular position, and they thought that once that information got out there women would start asking for more the opposite happened, women started asking for even less and men started asking for even more. And when I saw that I was like Yep, I'm on the right path. This is the right thing because if we don't handle the conditioning that we're carrying you talk about the patriarchy. It's not just men. It's how we all teach each other tell mothers teach their daughters, out of love right no ill intentions, you know how to watch yourself.
Kasia: So the school was born as this beautiful laboratory of sometimes incredibly outrageous ridiculous insane experiments and overtime was, you know, honed into a fine tuned curriculum.
Melinda: And when women come to the Academy, you know, and just sort of, you know, focusing particularly on the workplace, you what are some of the biggest challenges they are facing and, what are they hoping to overcome?
Kasia: Very often, they come in with one question, and their one question ends up not being the full story. So what I see them coming up against. They're not asking for the resources they need in order to get the project's done when they do the request doesn't come out right they don't get what they need. They feel disrespected diminished harassed, talked over, it's all the stuff we hear about, you know, he's beating a man taking the credit for the idea, but instead of stopping there that's sort of the beginning point. So I talked about good girl conditioning, the good girl has a big sister, an offshoot. They're the women who are like, I am not a good girl. I will go after what I want. I will go after what I want no matter what it takes, I'm going to have it all. And this is the incredibly bittersweet victory of the independent woman because she goes after what she wants, but she does it all by herself. And she's exhausted and she's pissed off may not be saying it but she's exhausted. She has her shit together but she's exhausted and she's pissed off, she's working on herself, and she's working on it she's working way harder than anybody else, you know, in order to have it all she's doing it all. An independent unit that can run the entire planet all by herself frayed at the edges, none of her tender desires needs met, everybody around her is trained to know that she has their stuff together, so they never think to inquire if she needs anything. She's not worship she's not handled securely. There's no balance to it and she does it all she can be counted on for everything, you know, in case of emergency. Ask Sarah, you know, or whoever the independent woman may be. And so when we start talking about you know how to have a bold conversation that's captivating and compelling, with your boss about a raise or promotion or getting credit, that's incredibly important. We have skills, we have tools and we build skills for that, but also making sure that she's well sourced, making sure that she has everything she needs on every level, so that she can come out shining strong full and radiant. That involves her Mastering the Art of asking everyone in her life for what she needs and women are generally terrified of asking, especially the more tender ones. So there's this myth. I'm calling it a straight up myth, the myth that men go it alone. The John Wayne pull yourself up by your own bootstraps lie. It's a lie. It's a lie.
Melinda: How would they have the old boys network if that was the truth?
Kasia: Yeah, don't forget all the invisible labor that wives do. It's the old boys network it's men get a ton of support in those particular positions and women, we have to create them for ourselves.
Melinda: Well, and do you think okay so let's let's talk about that woman. I will say that I hear about it less now, but you know we all have heard about the queen bee syndrome you know the woman who is not really willing to help others come along and that was you know sort of a buzz for a long time about was holding women back and not coming together and do you think that some of it comes from the fact that they didn't have any help getting where they went and you talk about them being, you know angry and frustrated and what do you think that comes from.
Kasia: I think you're exactly right. I think that there is a degree of I mean you know this is a case by case basis thing every woman is different. Every 5-10 years, you know, microgeneration you see how women made it what they had to put up with what they had to do the things they had to sacrifice the impossible decisions they had to make, there's an incredible amount of aloneness there. And that does not lead a woman who had to fight so hard to get where she is, who's already under sourced and exhausted who's still fighting that kind of internal starvation does not breed generosity, not to other women and not to other men just does not breed generosity.
Kasia: When someone is full, when someone is full of everything that they need and spilling over without radiance generosity is a natural effect it's almost like releasing some of the extra energy, or that some of the extra goodness because you can't contain it all to yourself
Melinda: Right well I think that, of course, you know, now I do think things are changing and I think women are starting to see, there's certainly research out now that proves that when women band together when they support each other that they get farther a lot faster. Of course I've known this for a long time and I'm always talking to women about finding their tribe about building that community of other women to help them and supporting each other and the mindset of abundance that has to go with that because you can't say well, gosh, if I help her, she might get it and I won't. You know I do think that hopefully that mentality is changing, you know, as we see more and more women coming together.
Kasia: Things are changing quite quickly.
Melinda: Yes, indeed. Let's talk about you know what kind of conditioning, did you feel like you had to break to get into the position you talked about studying and what you had to do but, where were you and what kinds of things did you have to work on personally to be able to overcome what was holding you back?
Kasia: I like to joke with my students that joke not a joke that I teach what I need to keep hearing, and if I could believe that there was a time in my life where I had trouble, feeling good about asking a waiter in a restaurant for water like locating my desires asking for what I need, asking for what I want in a way that feels good to me and the other person just seemed like an impossible struggle. So I was definitely on a isolated path trying to create myself by myself in any way I knew how, and it took me a long time to realize the gift I give when I allow someone to serve me, men and women.
Melinda: That's an interesting way of putting it. You know I think just changing that perspective, you know the gift that you're giving you let someone else serve you asking for help, you know, we often talk about that you don't realize when you ask somebody for help how good it makes them feel to be able to give back and to help you.
Kasia: Oh it's beyond help and it's beyond how they get a chance to be generous. Anytime you ask someone invite them command them invite them involve them include them ask, ask for something you're giving them a role. Now, a lot of times what happens I see in marriages between men and women. What happens is, with a woman gets strong, and she does not ask enough of her husband, and when she doesn't ask enough of her husband she's giving him the role of a worm or a leech or a parasite or a couch potato. She does not ask enough of him. You are telling somebody who they are in your life by what you ask of them.
Kasia: I had this great experience with a substitute teacher who would skinny weak looking guy who would come into a class, students on, you know, substitute teacher day would eat them alive, and he had a really smart strategy, you would identify the “bad kid” in the room first thing he could give them the most important job, you would tell him you are the most important person to make him take attendance, and go to the principal's office, and there would be peace in the kingdom for the entire session, it works every single time because you're telling them who you think they are and what they're capable of.
Kasia: So some of my students do something outrageous example, one of my students decided that she wanted to live in a castle, she happened to have a very wealthy, uncle who she was estranged with, who she could ask. Instead she asked her, painter boyfriend who had no money and no ability to buy her a damn castle. She prepared with the academy tools and the school and propose this compelling vision. Initially, she was complaining that every time she went over to his place he wouldn't even like take the dirty clothes off the bed, the behavior change that happened because she presented and asked that was so big so impossible for him to fulfill, explain how she saw this being possible changed his idea of himself in relation to her. So of course you can't buy her a castle, her uncle can she could have worked on that relationship and got herself a castle instead she got herself a love affair of a lifetime. Now, two years later, they're growing together, his career is growing, her career is growing, and it's based on a vision of a possibility that seems so out of reach and obnoxious to ask for. That obnoxious outrageous requests, move them into a whole new place.
Melinda: Fascinating. Well, tell everybody where they can find out more about the academy and if they want to check out what you're doing.
Kasia: Our website is weteachpower.com, is the easiest place to find us. I have a book coming out, August, 11, and a TED talk that should be released soon so that'll be around.
Melinda: Awesome. Yes, and I'm sure they can follow you on social media and social channels, etc.
Kasia: Yeah
Melinda: as we're closing out, you know, we do a little speed round, so people get to know a little bit more about you personally. So what's your morning routine look like.
Kasia: I don't have one. One of the wonderful things about the tools of the school and what we do is we really really really try to get women, no matter how financially compromised or burdened they are with responsibilities to never do what they don't want to do, do what they love do what they're best at, and ask and create a community around them that is also doing the same thing, the things that they love the things that they're best at. My morning routine changes. Right now I'm in Hawaii and I wake up between four and five. And that's been for the last week, but no routine is my routine because one of the practices is to feel your inner barometer and follow your intuition and follow what's right for you. What needs need to be met inside and outside, and that means that no two days are alike.
Melinda: What are you currently reading or listening to?
Kasia: I have an Amazon book buying habit that has me buying maybe 40 books at a time, but I never read them, I read a few pages, and skim through them to see what's interesting, I argue with some of them, and some of them may make me angry. And then I put them aside and buy 40 more.
Melinda: Maybe you need to go to Kindle unlimited.
Kasia: I have that but I have also really liked like having a library and I never allow myself to succumb to the obligation to be a reader, read a lot and finish books, they take what I need.
Melinda: Last question, what's one thing you can't live without?
Kasia: Pen and paper. I would lose my mind if I couldn't write things down. The handwritten part.
Melinda: Is very therapeutic for you.
Kasia: Yeah, yeah. Well whatever noticing whatever feeling, you know I set aside, two to three hours a day just to have feelings. Sometimes things come up that need to be noted.
Melinda: In two to three hours I would hope so. Right. That's great. Well thank you so much really appreciate your time and your sharing, and I'm sure everybody will be interested in checking out the academy and everything that you have to teach. Yeah, good luck on your upcoming book, we will be watching to see what you do next.
