Creative environments don't just nurture talent—they transform lives | YM Ep 32

Ruth Hubbard: Your Wallet Is Your Identity

Ruth Hubbard has spent her career connecting dots most people don't even see are on the same map. As a product and partnership leader at Fiserv, she works with billions of transaction data points, turning how people spend money into stories about who they actually are. She's a Fellow of the Economic Club of New York, a 2026 Semafor World Economic Summit principal, and hosts the NY Public Library's Trailblazer Series, where she sits down with founders, authors, and cultural leaders. In this episode, Ruth, Rob, and Munir trace the thread from her childhood debates in Stamford, CT (her parents are a lawyer and an HR executive — argument was basically a team sport) through Martha's Vineyard summers, Model UN at Harvard and Penn, and a career arc from Google to JP Morgan to one of the world's largest payment companies. They talk about why the words "Experience Abu Dhabi" on a Knicks warmup jersey tell a more interesting story about global investment strategy than most financial news coverage. They get into why your credit card statement might be the most honest portrait of your values that exists. And Ruth breaks down the three-part storytelling framework she's developed through years of interviewing some of the most interesting people in business and culture. It ends with a mixtape of songs about business — nine songs, three people, zero overlap, and somehow both Pink Floyd and the Isley Brothers feel completely at home together.

A Stranger at a Yoga Festival Told Her to Move to Costa Rica. She Went. | Elizabeth Arnold | Ep. 38

What happens when a stranger at a yoga festival gives you the nudge that changes your entire life? For Elizabeth Arnold, it meant quitting a soul-crushing bank job, leaving her apartment lease (and her cat) behind, and moving solo to the Costa Rican jungle — where she built an oceanfront yoga and surf hotel near the longest warmest wave in the world, ran women's travel retreats, and marketed the whole thing over borrowed wifi from a neighbor's house. That was just one chapter. Elizabeth has also founded a women's travel company, built a sports hobbyist app, written a children's book on maternity leave, run campaigns for Fortune 100 brands like Adobe and GoDaddy, and served as Chief Growth Officer at ViralMoment — turning AI video intelligence into an enterprise revenue category. In this episode, Munir and Rob dig into the philosophy that connects all of it: how yin yoga rewired Elizabeth's approach to difficulty, why quitting strategically beats grinding blindly, and why the most powerful career question isn't "what do you want to do?" — it's "who do you want to be?" She also weighs in on AI tools democratizing creativity (she built a full app on Lovable's free plan), what "translating" complex technology actually looks like in practice, and how to lean into a disruptive moment with grace instead of fear. Plus — the mixtape goes viral historian. We trace the arc from Britney Spears and MTV to Gangnam Style to Kate Bush's Stranger Things moment to the TikTok woman looking for a man in finance. If you work in social, video, or growth, this conversation is for you. Yo Munir! — the happiest guys on the internet — celebrates practice and creativity every week. Subscribe wherever you listen.

Lane Soelberg: Metrics Beat No Metrics | Ep 37

Lane Soelberg started in a Sears Craftsman red vest and ended up in rooms where deals between The Trade Desk, Pinterest, and Yahoo got shaped. Along the way he produced an indie film for $100K, scaled Madhive from $25M to $100M, pitched the first AMA-style online talk show with AOL, and learned the lesson that has defined his entire career: metrics beat no metrics. In Episode 37, Lane joins Robert and Munir for a Chicago-rooted conversation about curiosity as a creative engine, doing the jobs nobody else wants, why the pendulum is swinging back toward analog and small tight teams, and the three pieces of advice he'd give anyone trying to build something now. Plus a 1961 Leo Burnett quote that still holds up, a Joe Pytka story you have to hear, and a Chicago mixtape that runs from Cheap Trick to Gang Starr to Uncle Tupelo. The happiest guys on the internet are back. Yo Munir.

Rick Lowe, Joseph Beuys & Project Row Houses: Andrea Greer on Social Sculpture (Pt 2) | Yo Munir! Ep 36

Andrea Greer is Senior Advisor for Strategy & Research at Project Row Houses in Houston — the Third Ward institution behind the recent restoration of the Eldorado Ballroom. In Part 2 of our conversation, Andrea walks us through the founding story of Project Row Houses — seven Black artists in Houston in the late '80s, a bus tour where city leaders called Third Ward's shotgun shacks "the most dangerous block" and proposed razing them, and Rick Lowe's now-famous response: "this is the bones of our culture and our community." We get the influences behind PRH (artist John Biggers, Joseph Beuys's concept of social sculpture), the wild coalition of funders who made it happen (the Menil Collection, Chevron, the NEA), and what 33 years of social practice in one neighborhood has actually produced — a grocery distribution that started in the pandemic, the Eldorado Ballroom rehab, and a generation of Black artists (Theaster Gates, Mark Bradford, Amanda Williams) whose work traces back to PRH. Andrea also gives us three things to remember about creativity, an honest moment of self-reflection, and her karaoke fantasy playlist — which kicks off a freewheeling mixtape segment that links Curtis Mayfield, Joe Strummer's "Johnny Appleseed," Beuys's 7,000 oaks at Kassel, and a Jason Moran instrumental medley. If you haven't heard Part 1, don't worry, Part 2 stands alone. But you'll like this even more if you do. Chapters 00:00 — Social sculpture, defined 01:30 — Fundraising as sales ("I sold abortion rights to men") 05:00 — The seven founding artists of Project Row Houses 09:00 — "The bones of our culture": how PRH began 16:00 — "You gotta eat, man": pandemic pivot 19:00 — The Eldorado Ballroom: held in trust for the community 24:00 — Three things to remember about creativity 26:30 — Mixtape: Andrea, Rob, and Munir's picks Mentioned Project Row Houses, Eldorado Ballroom, Rick Lowe, John Biggers, Joseph Beuys (and 7000 Oaks at Kassel), Amanda Williams, Theaster Gates, Mark Bradford, the Menil Collection, Texas Southern University, Emancipation Park (Houston), the Lulu Foundation, the Ford Foundation On the mixtape Freda Payne · Scarface · Jason Moran · Robert Glasper · Jackson Browne · Jimmy Cliff (The Harder They Come) · Erykah Badu · Living Colour · Natalie Merchant · Curtis Mayfield · Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros · Rodriguez (Searching for Sugar Man) · The Avener Yo Munir! is a weekly podcast about practice and creativity, hosted by Munir Haddad (Kiosk) and Rob Haddad. 🔗 Andrea Greer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreacgreer/ · Project Row Houses — https://projectrowhouses.org/ · The Eldorado Ballroom (PRH restoration) — https://projectrowhouses.org/our-work/neighborhood-development/eldorado-ballroom/ · Munir / Kiosk: https://www.linkedin.com/in/munirhaddad/ · Rob Haddad: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-haddad-88670/ · Yo Munir! Ep 36 playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2LQyCmk5cCPiXr6yRzTBUX?si=yTsUp-CcR9ukgo7LeswXOA

Andrea Greer — Part 1: Crew, Coxswains & Kinetic Communication

Andrea Greer's career has been shaped, start to finish, by artists, activists, and the places they build. A lifelong Houstonian, she started out interning for Houston's Art Car Parade and is now Senior Advisor for Strategy & Research at Project Row Houses, the Third Ward institution behind the recent restoration of the Eldorado Ballroom. In Part 1, Andrea takes us back to the beginning: the kid who picked her own boarding school out of a library brochure, the Dartmouth coxswain who coined the term "kinetic communication," the art-history major who spent decades convinced she wasn't creative, and the law student who once nearly ditched it all to join a traveling circus with an artist named Chicken John. Part 2 goes deep on Project Row Houses, Rick Lowe, and the Joseph Beuys lineage that shaped it. Yo Munir! is a weekly podcast about practice and creativity, hosted by Munir Haddad (Kiosk) and Rob Haddad. In this episode: boarding-school survival, the coxswain's seat, kinetic communication, hidden creativity (needlework, karaoke, morning pages), almost joining the circus, and going back to law school during a pandemic — on purpose. 🔗 Andrea Greer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreacgreer/ · Project Row Houses: https://projectrowhouses.org/ · Munir / Kiosk: https://www.linkedin.com/in/munirhaddad/ · Rob Haddad: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-haddad-88670/