Unbound: A Woman’s Guide to Power Book Review

Episode 35: Unbound: A Woman’s Guide to Power Book Review

Karen Koehler, Mo Hamoudi, and Mike Todd review Unbound: A Woman’s Guide to Power by Kasia Urbaniak. They delve into the meanings of dominance, submission, and influence. 

Karen Koehler shares her “I’m the boss” fridge purge, Mo Hamoudi explains how walking away from incongruence gave him agency, and Mike Todd reframes power as influence instead of control. Together, they demonstrate that power is about presence, effective communication, and recognizing your desires in work, life, and the courtroom. 

This book may be written for women, but the insights apply to everyone. 

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Hosted by Karen Koehler and Mo Hamoudi, trial lawyers at Stritmatter Law, a nationally recognized plaintiff personal injury and civil rights law firm based in Washington State. 

Produced by Mike Todd, Audio & Video Engineer, and Kassie Slugić, Executive Producer. 

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Transcript

Introducing "A Woman's Guide to Power"

Karen Koehler 0:07

Well, this is a long-promised book review recommended by some of our coaching therapy people. This very wonderful book is called A Woman's Guide to Power, unbound by Kasia Ubraniuk, co-founder of the Academy. What is the Academy? What is the Academy? What is the Academy? Well, let me just read her bio.

Mike Todd 0:35

Read her description.

Karen Koehler 0:38

Kasia Urbaniuk is the founder and headmistress of the Academy, a secret school that teaches women to fully embody their confidence and power. Her teaching, based on insights from working as an expert dominatrix, and her training to become a Taoist nun have been profiled in the New York Times, the Cut, the Guardian and elsewhere. Through her courses, corporate sessions and more, she has trained thousands of artists and politicians, philanthropists, aid workers, lawyers and judges. I specifically like the way she looks with her head down and her eyes up. All right.

Understanding Dom-Sub Relationships

Karen Koehler 1:25

Well, this was quite the story and I think that should be required reading for everybody in the world to understand some of these principles. But I really also think that, since this is a book for supposedly women, that the men in the room who have now read it can lead this discussion Well, I've only read about half of it, but you've read half of it, which is about as much as I read that the men in the room who have now read it can lead this discussion, but you've read half of it, which is about as much as I read All right, yeah, I liked it.

Mo Hamoudi 2:04

What'd you like about it?

Karen Koehler 2:05

Well, I like the whole Dom part.

Mo Hamoudi 2:09

What do you mean by the whole dom?

Karen Koehler 2:10

part I like being the dominant. I thought it was the give and take the power thing and I think that also there's different spheres and different times for different elements. So there's work, there's personal. What's the difference between work? Is there anything else other than work and personal? There's work and there's personal. What's the?

Mo Hamoudi 2:34

difference between work. Is there anything else other than work and personal?

Karen Koehler 2:35

There's work and there's personal. But what do you like about the Dom part? I like telling people what to do and people doing it.

Mo Hamoudi 2:38

Why do you like doing that?

Karen Koehler 2:39

Because I like being in control.

Mo Hamoudi 2:41

That's it. That is the only reason.

Karen Koehler 2:43

Yes, I like things to turn out the way I want to. Let me give you an example. On Saturday I came to the office to write a brief, but I went to the kitchen, opened the fridge door and said this is gross and without giving a warning like Mike normally gives these lovely warnings like I'm going to clean the refrigerator at the end of the week, please remove your items. I said to myself I am the boss and I got two garbage bags well, garbage cans and I started looking at the expiration dates and I drained all the liquids in the sink and I threw away 99.5% of every single thing in that filthy fridge. And then I told people that I did that.

Mo Hamoudi 3:26

Is that because you said you're the boss, you felt in power? Yes, okay.

Karen Koehler 3:30

How did you exercise that power? Just, you're the boss.

Mo Hamoudi 3:31

You felt in power. Yes, okay, how did you exercise that power? Just throw the food away. Yes, I threw it all away. What else did you do other than throw the food away I took a picture and sent it to the office. Why did you do that?

Karen Koehler 3:40

Because I wanted them to understand that I was in control of the refrigerator.

Mo Hamoudi 3:44

What gave you more power? The picture, sending it to everybody or the act of throwing everything away. Probably the picture, the picture why the picture?

Karen Koehler 3:53

because they got to see it all at the same time what does it have to do with them seeing it? That gave you the power because that moment of letting them all see my powerful decisions to throw away food that dated back to January 2024. No, there was something that was December of 23, that it was a decree. It was not a deliberated process. It was my decree.

Mo Hamoudi 4:21

Did it fulfill a desire?

Karen Koehler 4:22

Yes.

Mo Hamoudi 4:23

Did you feel pleasure?

Karen Koehler 4:24

I did.

Mo Hamoudi 4:25

Tell me about the pleasure.

Karen Koehler 4:26

Pleasure is I hate mess, I hate yucky stuff. I don't like it when people don't clean up after themselves. Everybody knows this about me in the office, especially Mike. Mike, can you please give the list of everything that I have at one point or another most things directed to be cleaned up primarily by you. But I'm in there, I will roll up my sleeves and do it myself well, it's even further than that.

Mike Todd 4:54

If you see people other people's offices you've instructed them that they needed to clean up, and sometimes just done part of it for them. Um, yeah, though I would say that that's not exactly dominance.

Karen Koehler 5:12

It's not. I'm letting him go down this thing, but that's not what she's talking about. No, that's just me being bossy.

Mike Todd 5:20

One of the things that's very important in that to recognize and I think is one of the points that she drives home a lot is that power isn't dominance, it's influence, that power is receiving and directing and most people I mean that was when Mo and I were discussing this before you got here that's where also, the submissives have a lot of power, sometimes even more power.

Power vs. Dominance: The Misconception

Karen Koehler 5:55

And people miss that. People only see the loud person stomping around throwing the food out of the fridge. You know they think that's the dominance, but it's not.

Mo Hamoudi 6:07

What is it?

Karen Koehler 6:07

then you tell me you read the book.

Mo Hamoudi 6:16

For me, I think that it has to do with relationships, that's, the dominant, submissive. Relationship is about communication, and relationship is about communication and relationship, and it really tells you that everybody, every day, every moment, is seeking some form of pleasure and seeking to fulfill their desires. And the more they know what the hell those things are and the sooner they come to grips with them, they're going to be comfortable in their own skin and be able to communicate that to people in some coherent way.

Karen Koehler 6:52

Well, let's go back to the very beginning, because she does talk about being a dominatrix. Let's just talk about, like what is that? Let's start there, I mean, and this isn't like some novel thing. I mean, and this isn't like some novel thing. And what's interesting is she's just taking these principles and bringing them more to a forum where you can look at it more as the dynamics of power between people. Right, and how you achieve your desire, your pleasure. Yeah, but talk about some of her origins, how you achieve you know, your desire your pleasure.

Karen Koehler 7:32

Yeah, but talk about some of her origins and why is it? You know, what led her to believe that it was something that could help corporate people, lawyers, judges, decision makers, just people in general.

Mo Hamoudi 7:56

I think I mean the book is written to a female audience, but I think men will get a lot of benefit from reading it that women are playing into the cultural norms of what is perceived to be a good girl, which is the term she uses, like what does it mean to be a good girl?

Karen Koehler 8:16

What does it mean to be a good?

Mo Hamoudi 8:17

girl, it means to you, know, keep the house, make everything nice. You know, don't speak too loud. You know, don't voice your objections, don't be too assertive, because society judges men by what they accomplish and it judges women by who they are and the thing about it is that, as mike already said, there is nothing that's inherently not powerful about being more subservient, ultimately.

Karen Koehler 8:57

But is that all that you are, or is that all that you're capable of it, and is that the best way to get what you are desiring?

Mo Hamoudi 9:06

yeah, what she's saying saying is that understanding it and why you do it will help you accomplish things that you want, like elevate yourself or exercise power over your life, over a situation.

Karen Koehler 9:23

Why does somebody go to a dominatrix?

Mike Todd 9:27

Well because they want to. Often submit is what they want.

Karen Koehler 9:33

And why do they want to submit?

Mike Todd 9:34

Because that's where they get pleasure from. They like to be controlled and they I mean, you know we could go even further into the sexual aspect of them liking what the dominatrix does to them which can be lots of different things. It's not.

Mike Todd 9:55

It's not you know it's not sexual in the way that most people would think of it. When I say that word, it can be. I mean, you know there's the monetary dominance where the guys just give them money and they don't. I mean they're not doing anything else. Often they don't meet. These days they do it all online, so it's just somebody giving money to them because that's what makes them feel good. Yeah, you know, and you know you can go into a lot of other things that they do.

Mike Todd 10:34

But I would say that, first and foremost, the relationship between the dominant and submissive in in the uh, sex worker aspect is that it's a business relationship also, in that, if you're getting something else from them, like you know, I'm not going to go too graphic but say you want them to make you do something that most people wouldn't want to do, yes, um, and that is what makes you feel good when somebody says do this and it's something that you wouldn't want or that most people wouldn't want to do, but it's trusting that they're going to do that and only that and that they're going to keep that secret for you too. And I think that's where the transaction of it comes in.

Desire, Pleasure, and Communication

Mo Hamoudi 11:32

Okay. So in that context, which is the Dom sub transactional relationship, it has a lot to do. I think I haven't done it, but I know people who do it. It's being in a space that's private and expressing your desires in a safe space and then not having to take it home and take it to your regular life because your regular life would not tolerate it. What she talks about is that. Why do you do that? Why do you not want your real life to know what your real desires are? What is it about you? That's like editing you and is that really what you want? And is it really helping you fulfill the best version of who you want to be? And she, I think, suggests that you don't need to hide these things, you don't need to like these desires. You can find a way to express them. And a lot of the time, people won even realize it that you're doing it. You're, you're actually in. I like the word she uses. She says congruence, yeah I love that word.

Karen Koehler 12:44

What is congruent?

Mo Hamoudi 12:45

being congruent with each other, and congruence means means that that when we're talking, we are actually talking to each other. That I'm speaking with you Doesn't even have to be a sexual thing Physically. Physically, I'm talking to you.

Karen Koehler 13:02

Let's just assume that it's not a sexual thing.

Mo Hamoudi 13:03

Yeah, it's not a sexual thing, but when you're in a relationship, in any context that you are really present and you are physically communicating your needs to the other person. And that is why people go, I think, to these private little rooms to have somebody tie them up or do whatever, give money, berate them or touch them with a feather, whatever. Whatever they want to do is that they don't even have maybe a semblance of that in their day-to-day lives. And you can have it all the time, you can have it in any interaction.

Mike Todd 13:48

But that was the thing. At one point she talks about desire and how you don't control your desires. You don't have any choice over what your desires are.

Karen Koehler 13:59

Such a good point right there. Let's just pause on that one because because there's so much shame that follows people around, which is why they don't want to talk to other people, especially the people that are. You know, we talked about the outside, the moat in the castle and reach the castle walls, you know getting to your privacy, why the most unsafe you feel are is inside your own private space with other people yes because you think like this is odd.

Karen Koehler 14:23

I'm weird for thinking like this. This is embarrassing. I don't want them to feel bad. You know you, then you know. So you're protecting not only yourself, but you're trying to protect the other person. You're making all these assumptions Before you know it, you've shamed yourself right out of that reality. Your desires do not fit in the reality of what is acceptable to you, so they go somewhere else. They go either internal, never to be expressed, or in her world of dominatrix. She was able to provide a safe, trusted space, just like an attorney would provide a safe, trusted space for people to tell her their desires and have her go from there.

Mike Todd 15:04

It's also communication is really key in that You're opening your communication all the way up at that point as the submissive and you're giving them the comfort to be able to do that when you're the dom, and that's also one of the reasons you know. That's the power, that's one side of the power. Is the submissive feeling comfortable enough to be able to admit their deepest, secret desires? Yeah which sometimes I mean I've heard about people going to dominatrix and not really knowing how much they actually needed that until after they have experienced it.

Mo Hamoudi 15:52

I think Western society understands the actual dom-sub, the way we understand it, better because it's just so concrete. It's like physical dominating versus physically submitting to somebody.

Karen Koehler 16:09

It's been portrayed, of course, in movies and TV and social. You see the imagery, but the true understanding of the more sociological or whatever you want to call it, psychological, I've never seen it really explained before this book and the stuff that we know is so peripheral. It doesn't really, it's just an image. So when you're talking about dom sub, you're just thinking collar around the neck, chains, handcuffs even people within that world don't know a lot of that.

Mike Todd 16:49

People who are dominatrix, people who are submissives, people who are dominatrix, people who are submissives, people who are switches and participate in that world. There aren't that many. You have to be, you have to have been doing it for a while before you get to where she is.

Karen Koehler 17:05

You don't learn that stuff right away, she's not a novice.

Mike Todd 17:08

No, you, you it. That takes years and some people don't make it that far because it's too hard. Being able to change everything that you've been programmed to as as a human is to hide that stuff, and some people think they want to go down that road and it's too hard.

Eastern Philosophy Meets Dominatrix Principles

Karen Koehler 17:33

So so. So part number one of this conversation was just kind of talk about what is dom, what is sub the second part and the fact that she was a dominatrix. The second issue is she's also a Taoist monk, or she went through Taoist monk training. How does that interact with this dominatrix? Like how did that make her? Did she do it to become a better dominatrix? Like how did that make her? What did she do to become a better dominatrix? Was it completely separated? Like what was that journey and why are the two combined so interesting?

Mo Hamoudi 18:07

The Eastern philosophy of the yin and the yang is very much similar, has some similar qualities, to the dom-sub relationship. You know, understanding the sort, understanding the counter-positioning of men and women and how they relate to each other. That's been forever around. So she kind of brings this Eastern philosophy to it, of thinking about it, and she has difficulty teaching it to you know, people from the west, because they don't connect with daoist philosophy. That's why she used the traditional, more dumb sub relationship to do that. Um, but I mean, when you go through her teaching exercises exercises on how to do what she's suggesting, on how to incorporate the dom-sub qualities in your day-to-day life you realize at least I realize that I've been doing this for a long time.

Karen Koehler 19:08

I mean I knew that. I mean when I read it because you know we're older people I'm way older than you but I mean when I read it because you know we're older people. I'm way older than you, but I mean I'm older. And so going through it I'm like well, my patterns. I mean you could see yourself in there and how that all was working out for you sometimes. And especially for me, it's very interesting because of the differences between how I am in work and how I am as a person.

Mo Hamoudi 19:34

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 19:35

On a personal level. I'm not a dom in my personal life. Not very much. I still am to a certain extent, but not as much as you would think.

Mo Hamoudi 19:47

I think for me it was just that I am. The one exercise that I thought was quite helpful is understanding what is my desire in this interaction and trying to think about that before going into the interaction. And then, secondly, being present and watching what she is talking about, which is dominating into a conversation, into a relationship actively or submitting to it something as subtle as a conversation, and that's been fun.

Karen Koehler 20:21

For me what resonated, because I read it a lot longer than you guys did. I read it like two years ago because I don't remember all the details, but for me it's a transfer of energy which I understand and I can feel that it's how energy moves between people.

Mike Todd 20:36

How does it move? Well, and that was something that was when you brought up the yin and yang. That was part of the Taoist principle that she was describing how it's a circle with the wavy lines and it's moving. The relationship has to be fluid. Yes, it gets stagnant in the, in the eastern philosophy, that's where you know they were saying, in in medical philosophy, that's where it something bad is happening because it's stagnated incongruence exactly.

Mo Hamoudi 21:08

Yeah, that part I immediately. Yeah, that part. I immediately realize like in the last week I've been very conscious about it If I feel that I'm in an interaction and there's incongruence, I end the interaction.

Karen Koehler 21:24

Okay, very gracefully, give us an example of how you would have been before.

Mo Hamoudi 21:29

I would have been like clueless.

Karen Koehler 21:30

Like, give us an example.

Mo Hamoudi 21:31

Oh yes, I can give you an example I'm talking to somebody, but they're not really physically present and are not listening. They're thinking about. I can tell. I can tell the way they're looking at me.

Karen Koehler 21:41

Okay, so you're in person and you can tell that that person's energy is directed somewhere else.

Applying Dom-Sub Dynamics to Daily Life

Mo Hamoudi 21:45

Directed somewhere else. And then I start to feel a little bit uneasy. What's going on? Is this about me? Why are we not connected? And then I realize is that now I understand that, no, we're incongruent at this moment in time, for whatever reason. It may be a legitimate distraction, but then what she says is that how you exercise power over that situation is is that you just end it, and then so I just end it and I walk.

Karen Koehler 22:15

I mean, for those not watching the video, which is most of you, you're missing his facial expressions. It's true. Yeah, it looks like you feel empowered by that. Yeah, I do A lot, I mean how does it make you feel, how did it make you feel to do that?

Mo Hamoudi 22:30

I felt glorious.

Karen Koehler 22:32

Like because before you would stay in there and get more anxious and keep talking more and trying to capture their attention.

Mo Hamoudi 22:41

Look at me.

Karen Koehler 22:43

And start wondering is there something wrong with you? And start circling out.

Mo Hamoudi 22:50

Ruminating.

Karen Koehler 22:51

All of that stuff is going on. You're just yapping at the same time, but you were able to. I mean, you look very self-satisfied when you said that.

Mo Hamoudi 23:02

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 23:03

So it made you feel powerful.

Mo Hamoudi 23:04

Yes.

Karen Koehler 23:05

Over what.

Mo Hamoudi 23:06

Over myself and my desires. Complete agency.

Mike Todd 23:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you've made the first step, first step.

Mo Hamoudi 23:17

First step. It's an exercise. You've got to keep doing the exercises, but you can, I mean, do them at the coffee shop.

Karen Koehler 23:22

Okay, well, you moved on because I wanted to go through Taoist, I mean through Dom. Oh sorry, through Taoist. And now you're moving on, we're moving on and you're making a good move, don't apologize. Two examples of how does some of these principles work. So you gave us one example.

Mo Hamoudi 23:40

Yeah. The other one is yeah, go ahead.

Mike Todd 23:48

One thing that I was going to add before we go on is at one point she said one of the most important things for a dom is allowing your animal body to feel theirs, and that's that's the thing that I think is very important is knowing.

Karen Koehler 24:02

I want you to say that one more time.

Mike Todd 24:04

Letting their animal body. Feel what's going on in theirs okay, I like it and I I mean those terms I wouldn't use if I was talking about this before I looked at that book. Yeah, but I think that's one of the things that I've always been really good at.

Karen Koehler 24:22

What does that mean?

Mike Todd 24:23

Animal body. Well, I mean, I think that that's like your lizard brain or whatever. It's the animal part of all of us that's inside um, and I think I've been really good at like that's the way that I can connect to people. I can feel them a lot, yeah, so I think that's part of it is being able to either. Well, I think that people that are good doms can do that. While they're still, it's almost like compassion in a way, or something where you're able to get inside what they feel you know.

Mike Todd 25:07

Yeah, and then what you do with that is is what's important in those relationships, cause some people use that badly, they use that negatively, but in the Dom sub relationship, I mean, that's why a lot of people can say that that's the best relationship they've ever had, because it's everything, it's all you've allowed yourself the, the dom is able to feel what's inside you and the sub is able to communicate that to the dom. Yes, and, and knowing that that's working creates that fluidity.

Mo Hamoudi 25:43

Well said, I agree when are you? Karen, where are you, karen, where are?

Karen Koehler 25:49

you, karen? Oh, I'm thinking that mo's gonna run out and get a dom I'm gonna go get it well, because we did chat gpt here's a chat I said that no no. No, no, Our chat TV tease. I'm like what are our biggest fears? And or you know no, what is our? What is our, what is our curse?

Mo Hamoudi 26:16

Without explanation.

Karen Koehler 26:18

I did it. I was like what?

Mo Hamoudi 26:20

What is yours? You never even told I still haven't.

Karen Koehler 26:23

I mean, it was like, is this really my curse? My daughter did it for me me, but on my own phone, so that it would know and it was like something I would never have thought of and I still don't even know that it's right. But it said that my biggest curse was the fear of being lonely, which I don't even ever think of being lonely. And then we looked at it more and it was like abandonment. I'm thinking like, why I don't? I don't feel that way. Do I feel that way? And now I'm thinking like do I feel that way? So I need to explore that. We'll have, we'll have a whole analysis of me later, but I made, I made mo do it mine was to always understand others but never be understood.

Mo Hamoudi 26:59

Now, I don't take that to mean I'm a sub. I think, based on my read of her book.

Karen Koehler 27:04

I'm just saying, now that you're listening to this thing, that you could be completely understood by a dom. You asked me what I was thinking.

Mo Hamoudi 27:12

Oh yeah, you know how my mind works.

Karen Koehler 27:15

It's non-linear, but I was completely dialed into what he was thinking, but I was thinking through what he was saying, about what that chattvt said about your but truly. Chattvt said about your but truly, for your own enlightenment. This is the prompt. What is my curse? Without explanation.

Mo Hamoudi 27:34

And see what it says. It's kind of funny.

Karen Koehler 27:37

I guess, it kind of.

Mike Todd 27:38

it's kind of profound. Yeah, it's interesting because, uh, um, there's a musician named Brian Eno and he I can't remember the other guy that he did it with, but they came up with a, a series of cards called oblique strategies.

Mo Hamoudi 27:57

Yeah.

Mike Todd 27:57

It was the same deal. It was for them. It was to work as a tool when they were in the recording studio. So say, you get to a point where you're at a block, you don't know what to do. Draw one of the cards. They have preset statements that are very similar to what the ai just told you yeah, yeah where it sounds sometimes like nonsense almost, but if you try to apply that to the situation that you're in, that it can answer the question.

Karen Koehler 28:30

And.

Recognizing Your Power in Relationships

Mike Todd 28:30

I mean, I've looked at the oblique strategies cards and I wouldn't say that it's ever helped me, but I know a lot of people that swear by it.

Mo Hamoudi 28:39

Well, this is like the fortune cookie. Yeah, when you open a fortune cookie, it says these universal things, and then you want it to bring meaning to something that's going on in your mind and there'll be a connection well, I'm like there's lots of stuff, yeah, astrology, yeah, palm reading, all that kind of stuff.

Mike Todd 28:56

Some of it's just but gamming, but people that believe in it believe in it for those reasons okay but, but something about ai back to back to dom subs yeah, what about?

Mo Hamoudi 29:06

well, that's what we were talking about, but I got, you know you got a little distracted well, I wasn't distracted, I was focused.

Karen Koehler 29:11

But then you distracted us by asking what I was distracted about. But I wasn't distracted, I was focused on that, but through the lens of that, and yeah, this is how it happens the intricacies of our minds we're getting a little esoteric now. All right, so any other? Do? We have one more example that we can? It's just a good read, it's very interesting, oh yeah.

Mike Todd 29:35

Like I said. I mean, I haven't finished it yet but it is a self-help book. So sometimes the activities turn me off a little bit.

Karen Koehler 29:48

I don't do them, yeah, but Mo has.

Mike Todd 29:51

I tend to blast by some of those.

Karen Koehler 29:53

Mo, what was? Did you do another exercise?

Mo Hamoudi 29:55

Well, the one that I love I wrote it down is being deliberate with your attention to help me navigate my conversation, my conversation. So being very deliberate with my attention. So that exercise that she speaks to is that you have to literally pay attention to the person's body, eyes. It helps me navigate the conversation and I actually started it at the beginning of this with her.

Karen Koehler 30:27

Did it change something? Huh, did it change?

Mo Hamoudi 30:29

No, I just was playing, trying to see how the tools A little bit you were looking at me weird.

Karen Koehler 30:35

I was like what's up with him.

Mo Hamoudi 30:37

A weird look it was kind of weird. Now, why do you think it was weird?

Karen Koehler 30:43

There he's doing it.

Mo Hamoudi 30:45

Why do you think it was weird?

Karen Koehler 30:46

He's trying to out-Spock me, but I am the master Spock. But the only reason you just said that is, I revealed it to you no, but I already knew you were looking at me and not blinking.

Mike Todd 31:06

I feel like some examples. I guess where I was going to go is what's interesting about the book is trying to take those things, the those relationships, those terms that she's talking about and use them in everyday life is what the book is for yeah, yes, especially because it's directed at women who are traditionally like I was telling Mo before you got here, like even the yin-yang description that represents, in a way, male-female. So almost all religions I think she says this at one point have an aspect which is pushing women down. Yeah, yeah.

Karen Koehler 31:51

Or the feminine.

Mike Todd 31:52

The feminine Masculine, yeah, yeah, I think that being able to then apply this type of thinking when you're in real world situations, just like you said, you tried to do that here in a way. Karen recognized her right away and said that it was weird Getting to where you can do that in real life and people aren't realizing it.

Mo Hamoudi 32:17

Yeah.

Mike Todd 32:17

Is where it's really working, yeah. And and part of that and for the women, is being able to recognize what power is and how to utilize it, whether it's giving or receiving, um, and that's something I mean. This is something that I've worked on for a long time. Yeah, because you know a part of my. You know I don't know that it's neurodivergence, but like I don't like to have eye contact most of the time, yeah.

Mike Todd 32:53

It used to be really hard for me. I've kind of reprogrammed myself, but you'll notice sometimes where I'll be in the middle of a conversation and I just look away. Or often, when I catch people's eyes, I'll look away.

Mo Hamoudi 33:02

I do, I do, I do, I do yeah.

Mike Todd 33:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's just. I think part of it is because when I do look at people, I start to make the connection and it just kind of happens. Yeah, but I don't like to do that in everything.

Mike Todd 33:27

Like you know, like that's one of the reasons why I don't like it's odd because I like like to be a performer but I also don't like to be around crowds most of the time, and it's because, for me, I can feel everything. You know, I could feel all the people and I don't that's too much, you know it's over overstimulation kind of um. But on the on level, one of the things that I've really tried to do is get myself more comfortable with that and force myself to look at people in the eyes and not just be paying attention to the cues that I can pay attention to when I'm not staring at them.

Karen Koehler 34:01

You'd be completely at home in Asia. You live here in the United States, where direct contact is part of our culture, yeah, of normalcy. But in Asia, you would like if we did what we you know.

Mike Todd 34:14

Well, and I would say, especially in Japan, this stuff that we're talking about is a huge part of their society as a whole. Yeah, like dominance and submission is a big part of their society, yeah, part of their society. And some might say they've got it figured out better than we do, because there's parts of their society that might be working better right now than ours.

Final Thoughts on Personal Empowerment

Karen Koehler 34:35

Yeah, alright. Any last famous words before we go from there? No, alright. Well, dear Katia, whatever her name is, Kaisa. Kaisa, I got that completely wrong. I have highly recommended your book to all people. I think it's very interesting to get a different viewpoint. I didn't expect that one, and I like it. It's different. It's something to think about Especially for men.

Mike Todd 35:09

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would agree that, and I would say this book isn't just for women.

Karen Koehler 35:14

It certainly isn't. It can be for everyone.

Mo Hamoudi 35:16

No.

Mike Todd 35:17

And I think that especially dominant people who think they're dominant could benefit from reading this quite a bit from reading this quite a bit.

Karen Koehler 35:27

Well, you know, let's end with that, because the prototype lawyer is someone that is completely directive, that is unilateral, that's stridently aggressive.

Mike Todd 35:41

I'm a man, I'm a plaintiff's lawyer. Look at me.

Karen Koehler 35:44

I'm taking control.

Mike Todd 35:45

I'm in charge.

Karen Koehler 35:47

That preaches, that orates that.

Mo Hamoudi 35:49

Let me tell you what you need. Let me tell you what to do.

Karen Koehler 35:54

And the reality is that if they're not in a relationship, no, they're not really dominant is the reality.

Mike Todd 36:04

Yeah, they're just stomping around, yeah they're just huffing and puffing at that point.

Karen Koehler 36:08

Because you have to be in a relationship.

Mike Todd 36:10

Yes, it has to be communication between two or more people, and it has to go both ways too. You can't be just the person who's directing. You have to be willing to react to your direction and how it's been received.

Mo Hamoudi 36:31

Yes, Perfect Good.