Who Run the World

In this episode we talk about money - how to invest it, how to make smart decisions, how to achieve financial freedom and financial wellbeing. We are joined by Dr. Christiane Mueck who is the founder of INTO Financial , which helps people get an empowered understanding of modern personal finances and financial independence. Dr. Christiane demystifies investing and shares with us different tips and...

We are joined by Lighthouse Arabia founder and psychologist Dr. Saliha Afridi who breaks down everything we need to know about anxiety and mental health. Dr. Saliha tells us how we should treat our mental health like we treat our physical health, something to be cared for everyday. We also discuss anxiety and how our bodies go into fight, flight or freeze mode. Finally, we explore how we can show...

After 5 months apart, last week we were back together in the same place and took advantage to record a special episode in San Sebastian Spain. Since we were on vacation, we figured why not bring you an episode about how we ran the time while in the Basque country. We spoke about the different games we played during our road trips, how we kept the conversation going and we dove deep into how to man...

If you listen to this podcast you must know that we both love to converse, ask questions, travel down hypothetical routes, and learn things about each other and other people. Actually, did you know that according to a study by Marilyn and her team at Cosmic Centaurs : the more team members share mutual knowledge the more they are happy and perform better at work. So team centaurs created a deck of...

In this episode, we talk about boundaries: how to establish them, how to respect them for ourselves and for others, and why they are so important in the creation and maintaining of healthy relationships. Rhea shares that one of her main obstacles in her dating/romantic life is setting boundaries, always being available to and making things easier for her date. Marilyn on the other hand talks about...

We recently binge watched Netflix’s AlRawabi School for Girls and it quickly became one of our favorite television shows. We loved the series so much that TV binger Marilyn savoured it over a few days, and TV savourer Rhea binged it in just one night. We decided to take our conversation to the podcast and breakdown our thoughts and reactions to the series. We discussed how authentic the show felt...

54% of people in the Arab world are at risk for developing an eating disorder. To help us make sense of this astounding statistic, we invited Dr. Melissa Rizk on the podcast. Dr. Melissa is a nutritionist and holistic health coach with a PhD in Cognitive Neurosciences specialised in eating disorders. Dr. Melissa explains to us what exactly is an eating disorder, what can cause them and how people...

Rhea moved to London almost three months ago now. Living in this new city has made Rhea feel major bouts of loneliness, which often result in lots of tears. However, Rhea is not alone in her loneliness (see what we did there?). It turns out 1 in 3 millennials experience loneliness. We call that an epidemic, especially that loneliness can lead to shorter lifespans down the line. In this episode, Rh...

We continuously spend time having to make decisions. It’s part of being an adult. In this episode of Who Run the Time, we talk you through our processes of making decisions, with Marilyn laying out the different frameworks she uses to sift through different options around her, and make informed decisions. Rhea on the other hand talks about how she consults her friends (or as she likes to call them...

It’s been a year since the August 4th explosion in Beirut. We wanted to commemorate the one year anniversary of the port explosion by having a conversation with our friend Farrah Berrou. A year ago, we had spoken to Farrah in the days after the explosion. We wanted to create a space of grief and support through conversation. This year we felt like we needed to do the same. Farrah was in Beirut on...

In our last episode we talked about how to deal with conflict. In this episode we get to practice what we preach, as we have one of our long standing debates on the microphone: to binge watch TV or not to binge watch TV. In one corner, we have Marilyn who is the ultimate binger (her world record currently stands at watching TV until 5 AM in the morning). In the other corner, we have Rhea, who choo...

For our third episode of Things My Mother Didn’t Tell Me but My Best Friend Did, we dive deep into a topic that our families and communities never really taught us how to navigate: conflict. We share our own experiences around conflict, and discuss how to engage in a disagreement while trusting our own voices and the voices of the people around us.  Make sure to hit that subscribe button wherever...

When she moved to the UK, Rhea had to spend ten full days quarantined in a hotel room. First things first: Rhea did not go crazy, and surprisingly enjoyed her time in between the four walls of her quarantine space. On day 9, Rhea and Marilyn sat down to reflect on Rhea's locked up experience, which ended up being a conversation about how we choose spend our most valuable commodity, which is t...

After a year of living in the same city, Rhea is moving to London. This means that we are about to embark on a long distance relationship. We recorded one last episode together in person, and suffice it to say: it got emotional. Rhea talked about  her struggle in sharing her emotions, and feeling both excited and nervous about moving to a new city, Marilyn shared her frustration with often being m...

One in four pregnancies end in a miscarriage, and yet the there is little medical and psychological resources available to guide women on how to go through this traumatic experience. Our friend, Tala Odeh was brave enough to come on our podcast to share her own story on miscarriage. She tells us about the different emotions she went through, how she felt let down by the medical system, how members...

80% of women don’t know what their bra size is. Most of us also do not know what cup shape best suits us, or where to even begin browsing when entering a lingerie store. Pair all of that with the unrealistic standards of beauty set by the media and brands (we see you Victoria Secret Angels), underwear can be a source of anxiety or shame. So in this episode, we lay it all bare, and talk about our b...

In this episode, we are joined for our version of  game night by Nathalie Marsi and Nadyn Chalhoub, the hilarious duo behind Coffee Break. We quiz Nathalie and Nadyn on who knows who better, we debate whether aisle or window is the way to go on a plane, and we discover that the ladies of Coffee Break do not have a sweet tooth (and thus began the great Oreo debacle of 2021). To close things off, we...

June Xie is a Senior Food Producer at Delish and is the host of YouTube series Budget Eats as well as other series on the Delish Channel. In this episode, June joins Marilyn and Rhea in  conversation on the challenges in producing food media in the world’s current climate. June talks about the pressures she faces as an Asian American in content, what her thoughts are on food culture appropriation...

During the early days of the pandemic, when the world went on lockdown, Marilyn started her own company: Cosmic Centaurs . For the past year, Marilyn and her team have been helping leaders and organizations shape the future of work and learning. During this special episode, Marilyn shares with us how she took the leap to launch her company in the midst of the pandemic, how she built her team of fi...

For all the single people out there, the pandemic has been a lonely and boring period. Have you ever tried dating six feet apart? Despite it all, Rhea decided to get back in the dating field, and who better to serve as her virtual wingwoman, and help her put together her online dating profile than her BFF Marilyn. In this episode, we give you our best dating advice, while swiping right and left on...

Dr Sandrine Atallah is a consultant in sexual medicine, a certified psychosexologist and a hypnotherapist. She is also the host of her own podcast, Hakeh Sareeh, where she provides scientific information about sex, sexuality and gender to the Arab world. Despite the fundamental work that she does, Dr Sandrine is constantly faced with resistance on both social and traditional media. In this episode...

This past year has turned the way we work on its head. The pandemic and work from home has affected all of us in different ways, depending on our profession, our location, our personalities and of course our gender. On this episode Marilyn and Rhea debate whether distributed work helps or hinders women in the work place. This episode is a special crossover between Who Run the World and Marilyn&apo...

Rana El Aaraj joins us in a conversation around sexuality and gender in the Middle East. Rana breaks down the current state of sexual education and gender identity in the Arab world. We also discuss why labels matter, and debate how we could work towards a more inclusive society. If you have any questions for on gender and sexuality, please write to us on sayhi@whoruntheworldpodcast.com and we wil...

In the past, we’ve talked about how we’ve used time to learn new things, play fun games, start stimulating conversations, consume the pop culture content du jour, and do so many other beneficial activities. So naturally, we decided to dedicate an entire episode to the things we do that are a total and utter waste of time. From scrolling our Instagram feeds (or tapping through stories) to making fu...

Two years ago this week, we launched the very first episode of Who Run the World. We decided to celebrate by inviting our moms Antoinette and Nicole onto the podcast and have them speak about their proudest accomplishments: us!  The last two years have been an incredible ride. We are thankful for every one of our listeners, and we hope to continue producing this podcast for years to come (and hope...