How to Be Anything

Latest Episodes:

Bonus: I Used to Be A Weed Courier Sep 24, 2025

Show notes

Laney spent two years cycling across New York City as a courier, delivering weed and gummies straight to people’s doors. Along the way, she met eccentric characters: a man with a hallway full of newspapers, a woman with a house full of disco balls, and a musician diagnosed with Parkinson's who used weed to play his instruments. The job was exhausting, risky, sometimes scary, but also filled with surprising moments of connection. In this bonus episode, Laney shares how cycling 13+ miles a day changed the way she saw the city, and herself.

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To learn more about the show and our guests, visit howtobeanything.com

Find us on Instagram: instagram.com/howtobeanything

See pictures of our guests and get a behind-the-scenes look at the podcast on our Substack at howtobeanything.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

10. How to Teach Dogs to Find Cancer Sep 10, 2025

Show notes

On September 11, Dr. Cindy Otto cared for the search-and-rescue dogs working the pile at Ground Zero—an experience that changed the course of her career. Today, she leads the Penn Vet Working Dog Center, where dogs are trained to climb ladders, sniff out explosives, and even detect cancer in humans (and dogs!). In this episode, Dr. Otto shares how dogs learn to separate the “signal from the noise” in complex human blood samples and why their supernoses are helping scientists build new diagnostic tools. It’s a story about resilience, science, and the extraordinary bond between humans and dogs.

See pictures of our guests and get a behind-the-scenes look at the podcast on our Substack at howtobeanything.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

9. How to Be a Doctor in the Arctic Circle Sep 03, 2025

Show notes

What does it take to be the only doctor in a remote Arctic village, where polar bears roam and lab results arrive by plane—if the weather allows? In this episode, Dr. Jen Pond shares her journey from practicing medicine in a mud hut in India to working at the world’s highest ER at Everest Base Camp, and now serving an Inuit community in Nunavut. She reflects on the extremes of remote medicine, the lingering effects of colonialism on Indigenous health, and the mental strength required to practice in such environments. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to trade a suburban clinic for the edges of the world, this conversation will open your eyes.

Find us on Substack: howtobeanything.com

And on Instagram: instagram.com/howtobeanything/

See pictures of our guests and get a behind-the-scenes look at the podcast on our Substack at howtobeanything.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

8. How to Be a Tower Climber Aug 27, 2025

Show notes

Tower climbers risk their lives to keep your phone signal working—and most people don’t even know the job exists. In this episode, climber Brendon King shares what it’s really like to scale a steel tower swaying like a spaghetti noodle, nap in a harness suspended 300 feet in the air, and discover cell antennas hiding in fake cactuses and church steeples. It’s dangerous, breathtaking work that powers nearly everything we do.

Find us on Substack: howtobeanything.com

And on Instagram: instagram.com/howtobeanything/

See pictures of our guests and get a behind-the-scenes look at the podcast on our Substack at howtobeanything.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bonus: I Used to Be a Corporate Butler Aug 25, 2025

Show notes

When an aspiring journalist took a day job as a butler for Philadelphia’s ultra-rich, he found himself serving Michelin-star meals, running dry cleaning, and accidentally spiking the water with zucchini. In this bonus episode, Max Ufberg shares the strange, funny, and sometimes uncomfortable realities of working behind the scenes for the one percent. The experience gave him an education in class and work. Today, he’s a senior editor at Fast Company, but he still remembers what it felt like to answer the bell.

To learn more about the show and our guests, visit howtobeanything.com

Find us on Instagram: instagram.com/howtobeanything

See pictures of our guests and get a behind-the-scenes look at the podcast on our Substack at howtobeanything.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

7. How to Be a Forensic Artist Aug 20, 2025

Show notes

In this episode of How to Be Anything, forensic artist Melissa Cooper takes us inside the delicate, high-stakes work of sketching criminals, missing persons, and the unidentified—sometimes from nothing more than a witness’s memory or a bare skull. She shares how she balances compassion with precision, guiding people through painful recollections to capture the face they’ll never forget. From age progressions to postmortem reconstructions, Melissa reveals the surprising mix of artistry, psychology, and science that powers her work. Plus, hear the story of a single sketch that helped catch a suspect within days.

Find us on Substack: howtobeanything.com

And on Instagram: instagram.com/howtobeanything/

See pictures of our guests and get a behind-the-scenes look at the podcast on our Substack at howtobeanything.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bonus: "My Friend's a Rapper!" (HTBA Listeners Tell Their Stories) Aug 18, 2025

Show notes

To celebrate the launch of How to Be Anything, we threw a party, complete with cake, drinks, and a telephone where guests could call in their funniest, cringiest, and most unforgettable job stories. In this bonus episode, you'll hear everything from a woman trying to make a call on her shoe, being trapped in a junk truck with a SoundCloud rapper, to the world’s most committed Panera brownie fan. It’s hilarious, heartfelt, and a reminder that every job—no matter how ordinary—comes with a story worth telling.

See photos from the HTBA launch party at howtobeanything.com/p/my-friends-a-rapper

Find us on Instagram: instagram.com/howtobeanything/

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See pictures of our guests and get a behind-the-scenes look at the podcast on our Substack at howtobeanything.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

6. How to Search for Dark Matter Underground and in Space Aug 13, 2025

Show notes

Most of the universe is made of something we can’t see, detect, or even describe in much detail. In this episode, we go from the depths of a gold mine in South Dakota to the far reaches of space, where experiments are underway to catch a glimpse of the universe’s most elusive ingredient: dark matter. Along the way, astrophysicist Dan Hooper recalls the moment he stumbled across a strange anomaly in NASA data—one that might just be evidence of dark matter itself. It’s a journey to the cutting edge of physics, where the biggest mysteries may be hidden in plain sight.

To learn more about dark matter and the experiments searching for it, visit howtobeanything.com/p/washing-through-a-sea-of-wimps-the

Find us on Instagram: instagram.com/howtobeanything/

See pictures of our guests and get a behind-the-scenes look at the podcast on our Substack at howtobeanything.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

5. How to Be a Foley Sound Artist Aug 06, 2025

Show notes

What does it take to make the sound of someone walking through a tunnel made of flesh or leaping into the mouth of a shark? For Dutch Foley artist Ronnie Van der Veer, it might involve wet chamois cloths, antique bullets, or a pool rigged to sound like a plane crash. In this episode of How to Be Anything, Ronnie pulls back the curtain on the invisible craft of making movies feel real, one squish, tap, and creak at a time.

Find us on Substack: howtobeanything.com

And on Instagram: instagram.com/howtobeanything/

NOTE: In this episode, I incorrectly name the director of the film The Girl. The movie is directed by Lukas Dhont. Victor Polster is the actor/dancer who stars.

See pictures of our guests and get a behind-the-scenes look at the podcast on our Substack at howtobeanything.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

4. How to Be a Puppetry Artist Jul 30, 2025

Show notes

For puppetry artist Heidi Rugg, performing puppet shows isn’t just play: it’s storytelling, sculpture, design, voice acting, and engineering rolled into one. In this episode, Heidi shares how a leisurely walk sparked a 25-year career writing, building, performing, and traveling. We talk about the art and grit behind her work, what it means to be bad at something before you're good, and why puppets are more common (and more powerful) than you might think.

Find us on Substack: howtobeanything.com

And on Instagram: instagram.com/howtobeanything/

See pictures of our guests and get a behind-the-scenes look at the podcast on our Substack at howtobeanything.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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