How To Academy Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Natasha Polisczuk Meets Louisa Young – The Golden Hours Sep 25, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Louisa Young joins journalist and editor Natasha Poliszczuk to discuss the making of The Golden Hours, the sixth Cazalet novel. Louisa explains what it takes to inherit half a million words and fifty-five characters, why some of them had unfinished business she felt compelled to go back for, and how to write the sixties as they actually arrived. She will also discuss the rapid decline of the English upper middle class and the social observations that make the Cazalet Chronicles so beloved.

Join us for a fascinating look at what it means to be trusted with a world somebody else made, and how to carry it into a decade that changed everything.

Join us live! How To Academy hosts world-renowned artists, thinkers, and leaders live on stage across the UK and USA. Find out who’s appearing near you at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠howtoacademy.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Become a Member: How To Plus members receive £15 off every live event ticket, free access to biweekly livestreams, and an exclusive members-only podcast. Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠howtoacademy.com/htasubscribe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

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Bestselling Mindset Coach Ben Crowe – How to Change Your Life Sep 22, 2026

Show notes

Having worked with top athletes and sportspeople, leading tech and finance corporations, and the World Health Organisation, Ben Crowe is one of the world's most in-demand mindset coaches. In this episode of the podcast, he reveals simple-yet-profound perspective shifts that will change the way you see the world and yourself. Showing how these perspective shifts are relevant to everyone, Ben demonstrates how self-compassion, imagination and appreciation can turn adversity into possibility, remove pressure and help us find that elusive balance between confidence and happiness, achievement and fulfilment.

Join us for the only guide you need to shift your outlook, improve connection, and build confidence.

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Bestselling Novelist China Mieville – On Grief, Ghosts, and Empire Sep 19, 2026

Show notes

The central figure of the New Weird, an unofficial movement fusing science fiction, fantasy, and horror with a literary sensibility, China Mieville is equally known for his award-winning, internationally bestselling novels, which include Perdido Street Station, The City and the City and The Last Days of New Paris, and his work as activist, historian, and scholar of the Marxist Left.

He joins us for a (mostly) spoiler-free conversation unveiling his most ambitious work of fiction to date. A heady brew of literary fiction, military and espionage adventure stories, horror, post-colonial magical realism, and much else besides, The Rouse is a milestone in Mieville's career and a landmark in modern fantasy writing. We discuss how he has personally changed in the two decades of the novel's gestation, the social status of the octopus, the end of the British empire, and the nature of grief and loss. Also: Ghostbusters!

Join us live! How To Academy hosts world-renowned artists, thinkers, and leaders live on stage across the UK and USA. Find out who’s appearing near you at ⁠howtoacademy.com⁠.

Become a Member: How To Plus members receive £15 off every live event ticket, free access to biweekly livestreams, and an exclusive members-only podcast. Find out more at ⁠howtoacademy.com/htasubscribe⁠.

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Bestselling Mythologist Amy Jeffs – The Life of King Arthur Sep 16, 2026

Show notes

A scholar, author, artist, and musician, Amy Jeffs is a polymath of British mythology, bringing the greatest stories of the Middle Ages to life in extraordinary books including Storyland, Wild, and Old Songs. She returns to the podcast to share a new life of King Arthur -- drawn not from Mallory's Morte d'Arthur, as most modern adaptations of his story are, but from older, darker, stranger, and more magical sources. This is a story you have never heard before: of a warlord and Roman Emperor, raised by fairies to conquer much of the known world.

Join us live! How To Academy hosts world-renowned artists, thinkers, and leaders live on stage across the UK and USA. Find out who’s appearing near you at ⁠⁠⁠⁠howtoacademy.com⁠⁠⁠⁠.

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Time Woman of the Year Zahra Joya — The Vanishing Girl of Kabul Sep 14, 2026

Show notes

Zahra Joya grew up under the first Taliban regime, when girls were banned from school. For years she dressed as a boy to access the basic rights denied to her. She became a journalist in Kabul, and founded a news organisation reporting on the lives of Afghan women. In 2021, when the Taliban took over power once again, she was forced to flee the country.

In this episode of the podcast, Zahra discusses her experience of growing up under Taliban rule, the US-led war, their withdrawl in 2021, and the world's decision to look away in the wake of the Taliban's return to power. Zahra reflects on exile, the women still reporting from inside Afghanistan, and why she believes women's rights are everyone's responsibility.

Join us live! How To Academy hosts world-renowned artists, thinkers, and leaders live on stage across the UK and USA. Find out who’s appearing near you at ⁠⁠⁠howtoacademy.com⁠⁠⁠.

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Kimon de Greef — A Trip into the Psychedelic Underworld Sep 08, 2026

Show notes

When Kimon de Greef began an investigation into the smuggling of white sage, a Californian herb popular in the wellness movement, he could not have foreseen that the story would lead him into the dark heart of the psychedelic renaissance and one of its most prominent advocates, Dr. Octavio Rettig: a Mexican physician dedicated to spreading the practice of smoking the secretions of the Sonoran Desert toad. The experience promises extraordinary relief for those suffering from PTSD, depression and drug addiction - but can also be fatal...

Join us for a story of cults, cartels, and corporations that is stranger than fiction and still unfolding today.

Join us live! How To Academy hosts world-renowned artists, thinkers, and leaders live on stage across the UK and USA. Find out who’s appearing near you at ⁠howtoacademy.com⁠.

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Jo Marchant – The Science and Mystery of the Present Moment Sep 07, 2026

Show notes

What if the present moment – the ‘now’– isn’t just a tick of the clock? We feel that the present is everything; all we can know, yet physics finds no universal 'now'. So where does that leave us – and what is the 'now' we experience?

Science journalist Jo Marchant draws on state-of-the-art discoveries in neuroscience, psychology, cosmology and quantum physics, to show how we each carve out our lived experience – sensations and emotions, actions and decisions – through our interactions with the world. Join us to explore how this evolving, interconnected tapestry is the source of our lives and selves, and perhaps even reality itself.

Join us live! How To Academy hosts world-renowned artists, thinkers, and leaders live on stage across the UK and USA. Find out who’s appearing near you at ⁠⁠howtoacademy.com⁠⁠.

Become a Member: How To Plus members receive £15 off every live event ticket, free access to biweekly livestreams, and an exclusive members-only podcast. Find out more at ⁠⁠howtoacademy.com/htasubscribe⁠⁠.

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Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon – The Future is Peace Sep 01, 2026

Show notes

“People have lost hope that peace is possible. Talking about peace seems too vulnerable, too naïve, too dangerous. We have resigned ourselves to this unending war as the only way forward. But we have tried this. We have tried war. The only war that is won is one that leads to peace.”

On paper, Maoz Inon and Aziz Abu Sarah should not be friends. Aziz's brother was killed by Israeli forces. Maoz lost both his parents in the 7 October 2023 attacks. And yet these two lifelong peace activists have embarked on a searing journey to understand this holy, bloodstained land and explore each other’s personal and national histories. In this episode of the podcast, Maoz and Aziz will take us inside that journey, sending the message that the people have the power to make change, and peace is achievable.

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Naomi Klein - The Mirror World of Conspiracists and the Far-Right (Summer Repeat) Aug 28, 2026

Show notes

As conspiracy theories, political polarisation and the blurred boundaries between truth and misinformation continue to shape our public life, Naomi Klein's prize-winning book Doppleganger (2023) feels more relevant than ever before. In this fascinating episode of the podcast, Naomi joins journalist Moya Lothian-McLean to explore the strange world of far-right conspiracy theories, wellness influencers and online radicalisation. What can following her own doppelganger into this mirror world teach us about our increasingly polarised politics, and how can escape this collective vertigo and get back to fighting for what really matters?

Naomi will be joining us again on Wed, 30 September, with writer and activist Astra Taylor, and in conversation with David Olusoga, for a new reckoning with our age. We find ourselves in the clutches of End Times Fascism, and Naomi will take us on a journey inside the far-right Armageddon complex – and show us how to break the doom loop before it’s too late. Tickets and details can be found here.

Join us live! How To Academy hosts world-renowned artists, thinkers, and leaders live on stage across the UK and USA. Find out who’s appearing near you at ⁠howtoacademy.com⁠.

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Yuval Noah Harari – Making Sense of a World in Crisis (Summer Repeat) Aug 25, 2026

Show notes

In an age of uncertainty, renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari joins Ritula Shah to make sense of a world in crisis and help us better understand the perils we face.

In this episode of the podcast, bestselling author of Sapiens and Nexus Yuval Noah Harari joins Ritula Shah to explore the forces shaping our uncertain future: from the rise of AI and the changing nature of information, to nationalism, democracy and the question of what remains within our control. In a world increasingly difficult to predict, how can we make sense of where we are heading?

Join us live! How To Academy hosts world-renowned artists, thinkers, and leaders live on stage across the UK and USA. Find out who’s appearing near you at ⁠howtoacademy.com⁠.

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