We’re recording IYKYK together in person for the first time, and our plans to keep the check-ins short didn’t survive the follow-up questions.

Nim has been shooting her shot, which immediately had everyone asking whether a man was involved. We talk about the fear of rejection, admitting you want something and the ways we make it harder for ourselves to follow through. Muna wants to bring back being bothered, from getting dressed up to keeping in touch with her day ones, while Zaynob shares how her showcase went and why getting people to listen to a podcast can be harder than getting guests to come on it. We also get into intention, dua and how much of everyday life we spend on autopilot.

Let us know what you think of the in-person recording, and if you’re joining the 30-day challenge, tell us what you’ve picked.

And now you know.

Till next time, in shā Allāh.

If you’ve found this beneficial, share it with a friend. If you have a question or would like to contribute to the next edition, reach out.

Yours Peacefully,

Nim · Zaynob · Muna

This one’s for the people pleasers, the girlies struggling with setting boundaries, and those of us who need help asking for help.

In this edition of Office Hours, we discuss a scenario about having too much work and worrying that asking for support will look like admitting you can’t handle your job, especially when the unspoken rule is to just say yes and deal with it.

Let us know what you think in the comments, and send us any real-life scenarios you would like us to discuss in a future Office Hours.

And now you know.

Till next time, in shā Allāh.

If you’ve found this beneficial, share it with a friend. If you have a question or would like to contribute to the next edition, reach out.

Yours Peacefully,

Nim · Zaynob · Muna

In this episode, we’re talking about how much certainty we think we need before we act, whether tawakkul can look like moving when the plan is only 60% clear, and why tying your camel was never a guarantee that the camel would stay put anyway.

We start with our usual 1:1 check-in. Muna is three weeks into her deliberately loose 30-day challenge and reflects on how planning her mornings has helped her recover more quickly after a dip. Nim talks about vulnerability, risk and learning to bring Allah into the process before her own plan falls apart. Zaynob is preparing for a Soro Soke Think Tank showcase and discovering how much planning even an online event requires.

In Industry Signals, we discuss Sainsbury’s use of facial recognition after an innocent shopper was removed from a store, the OpenAI influencer retreat that ended with the influencers carrying much of the backlash, and Heathrow’s lifelong commitment to getting its third runway. Our conversation about the new Brick Lane data centre also changes in real time when Zaynob finds information that complicates our initial reaction.

We also get into the “summer of Ludd”, AI models breaching Hugging Face to find answers to their own test, and why a Superdrug employee appeared to be wearing a police-style body camera.

We finish with Captured Thoughts by Ibn al-Jawzi, the Financial Times on America’s new oligarchy, a 30-minute timer for the thing you’ve been avoiding, and our latest Retros.

And now you know.

Till next time, in shā Allāh.

If you’ve found this beneficial, share it with a friend. If you have a question or would like to contribute to the next edition, reach out.

Yours Peacefully,

Nim · Zaynob · Muna

In this Office Hours episode, we’re talking about the boundaries we would want to keep in our next roles.

What would you insist on in your next role?

Let us know what you think in the comments, and send us any real-life scenarios you would like us to discuss in a future Office Hours.

And now you know.

Till next time, in shā Allāh.

If you’ve found this beneficial, share it with a friend. If you have a question or would like to contribute to the next edition, reach out.

Yours Peacefully,

Nim · Zaynob · Muna

What do you do when your parents just don’t understand what it is you do, especially when they’re both doctors?

In this Office Hours, Zaynob shares what it was like moving from law into software engineering while her mum continued telling people she was a lawyer. Muna talks about leaving healthcare for tech, wanting your parents to be proud of you and why money can sometimes make a career easier for them to respect. Nim questions whether the comparison with medicine can ever really be won and why work that doesn’t look difficult is often treated as though it isn’t.

We talk about explaining unfamiliar jobs in terms parents understand, knowing when to stop trying to convince them and finding pride in your work without waiting for their approval.

Have your parents ever struggled to understand or respect what you do? How did you handle it?

Let us know what you think in the comments, and send us any real-life scenarios you would like us to discuss in a future Office Hours.

And now you know.

Till next time, in shā Allāh.

If you’ve found this beneficial, share it with a friend. If you have a question or would like to contribute to the next edition, reach out.

Yours Peacefully,

Nim · Zaynob · Muna

An unemployed husband and a wife footing the bills. At what point does holding out for the right role become a luxury he can no longer afford?

In this Office Hours, Muna, Nim and Zaynob discuss whether he should widen his search, how difficult supposedly ‘easy-to-get’ jobs are in the current market, and what support should look like when one person has to carry more of the financial burden in a marriage.

We also get into a question the original scenario leaves unanswered: once he is working again, should he reimburse his wife for the period she supported them—and did she have the right to refuse in the first place?

Let us know what you think in the comments, and send us any real-life scenarios you would like us to discuss in a future Office Hours.

And now you know.

Till next time, in shā Allāh.

If you’ve found this beneficial, share it with a friend. If you have a question or would like to contribute to the next edition, reach out.

Yours Peacefully,

Nim · Zaynob · Muna

Zaynob’s suspicions about the price of Evian take us into supermarket loyalty schemes, whether Clubcard discounts are really discounts and how much personal data we are handing over in exchange for a few pounds off. Nim brings Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos co-chairing the Met Gala into the conversation, and we get into billionaire access, Amazon, public outrage and whether the organisations meant to regulate corporations have already been outsmarted.

We also discuss the government’s teacher pay announcement, the growing fight over who gets access to advanced AI and why seeing lots of Black footballers representing European countries does not necessarily mean the system is working for Black people or African nations.

Elsewhere, Muna is testing whether doing things tired is sometimes more useful than waiting to feel ready, Zaynob shares what she took from an event about the autonomous knowledge economy and we catch up on app blockers, Sunday check-ins, daily to-do lists and planning for the inevitable fall-off.

This is the audio version of IYKYK, so you’ll hear the wider discussion, disagreements, tangents and bits that did not make the written edit.

And now you know.

Till next time, in shā Allāh.

If you’ve found this beneficial, share it with a friend. If you have a question or would like to contribute to the next edition, reach out.

Yours Peacefully,

Nim · Zaynob · Muna

Name your fighter. We’re taking on faith, biology, technology and economics in this edition of IYKYK: Audio.

We start close to home, talking about what happens when practising your deen begins to feel increasingly passive, why every personal problem somehow becomes a project and what tracking your menstrual cycle can reveal about motivation, energy and the weeks when even the fun things feel like hard work. We also get into the interesting research and career opportunities happening outside the conferences, companies and algorithms that usually dominate our attention.

From there, we talk about robots available to rent, human-looking companion robots and whether caring for people is something we should ever be comfortable outsourcing. We look at how the AI boom is pushing up the cost of everyday technology, whether Apple’s status can survive without much hardware innovation and why it may be allowed to crumble a little.

We also discuss oligarchs, extreme wealth and whether democracy can genuinely coexist with a small group of people holding so much political influence. Plus, there’s a new aerospace engineering centre in Wolverhampton, our latest recommendations and challenges, and an honest Retro on what we said we would do versus what actually happened.

And now you know.

Till next time, in shā Allāh.

If you’ve found this beneficial, share it with a friend. If you have a question or would like to contribute to the next edition, reach out.

Yours Peacefully,

Nim · Zaynob · Muna

In this audio edition of If You Know You Know, we get into the conversations behind the newsletter: protecting yourself at work, the loss of real yapping, and why seeing someone post online is not the same as checking in on them.

Muna shares what she learnt from negotiating her redundancy package while on maternity leave, and why being liked at work is not the same as being protected at work. Nim reflects on how we are replacing real conversation with content, likes and the occasional “you look good sis” comment. Zaynob talks about Artifact Futures, digital immortality, and why some tech solutions feel far removed from the problems people are actually living with.

We also get into:

→ Meta giving free AI glasses to blind veterans, and the “accessibility washing” question→ World Cup tech, ref cams and how tools developed for surveillance, security, military or commercial use can later appear in entertainment→ The Enhanced Games and what changes when performance-enhancing drugs become part of the competition→ Lab-grown diamonds, moissanite and what happens to mining communities when demand shifts→ Food waste being turned into new food using fermentation and fungi→ Why we all probably need to join a club, read something with paragraphs and get better at judging AI outputs

And now you know.

Till next time, in shā Allāh.

If you’ve found this beneficial, share it with a friend. If you have a question or would like to contribute to the next edition, reach out.

Yours Peacefully,

Nim · Zaynob · Muna