How to Be Anything

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.We're a bootstrapped, indie podcast, so please text a friend and share your favorite episode. Every download helps. Don't forget to rate and review and tell us what you really think. Those go a long way too. Find us on Substack: howtobeanything.comAnd 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.

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.We're a bootstrapped, indie podcast, so please text a friend and share your favorite episode. Every download helps. Don't forget to rate and review and tell us what you really think. Those go a long way too. Find us on Substack: howtobeanything.comAnd 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.

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.We're a bootstrapped, indie podcast, so please text a friend and share your favorite episode. Every download helps. Don't forget to rate and review and tell us what you really think. Those go a long way too. To learn more about the show and our guests, visit howtobeanything.comFind us on Instagram: instagram.com/howtobeanythingSee 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.

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.We're a bootstrapped, indie podcast, so please text a friend and share your favorite episode. Every download helps. Don't forget to rate and review and tell us what you really think. Those go a long way too. Find us on Substack: howtobeanything.comAnd 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.

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.We're a bootstrapped, indie podcast, so please text a friend and share your favorite episode. Every download helps. Don't forget to rate and review and tell us what you really think. Those go a long way too. See photos from the HTBA launch party at howtobeanything.com/p/my-friends-a-rapperFind 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.

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.We're a bootstrapped, indie podcast, so please text a friend and share your favorite episode. Every download helps. Don't forget to rate and review and tell us what you really think. Those go a long way too. To learn more about dark matter and the experiments searching for it, visit howtobeanything.com/p/washing-through-a-sea-of-wimps-theFind 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.

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.We're a bootstrapped, indie podcast, so please text a friend and share your favorite episode. Every download helps. Don't forget to rate and review and tell us what you really think. Those go a long way too. Find us on Substack: howtobeanything.comAnd 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.

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.We're a bootstrapped, indie podcast, so please text a friend and share your favorite episode. Every download helps. Don't forget to rate and review and tell us what you really think. Those go a long way too. Find us on Substack: howtobeanything.comAnd 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.

Meet Brie Hayden, a former studio artist at Madame Tussauds who shampooed wax heads, inserted individual eyelashes, and turned a melted celebrity into a Halloween zombie. In this bonus episode, Brie shares surreal stories from her time inside the museum and explains how that experience launched her full-time career as a hyper-realist artist. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at one of the strangest (and coolest) jobs you never knew existed.We're a bootstrapped, indie podcast, so please text a friend and share your favorite episode. Every download helps. Don't forget to rate and review and tell us what you really think. Those go a long way too. Find us on Substack: https://www.howtobeanything.comFind us on Instagram: https://www.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.

Skye Smith has one of the rarest jobs in the world: they’re the lorekeeper for Dimension 20, a hit actual-play Dungeons & Dragons show on Dropout TV. In this episode, Skye explains what D&D is, how collaborative storytelling works, and what it’s like to keep track of every single character, snack, and magical tree across multiple seasons. We talk about improvisation, creativity under constraint, and how Skye’s love of story led them from working as a production assistant to building their dream job from scratch. If you’ve ever wondered how a sprawling fantasy epic gets made—or how a cockroach named Marty ends up in Madison Square Garden—this one’s for you.We're a bootstrapped, indie podcast, so please text a friend and share your favorite episode. Every download helps. Don't forget to rate and review and tell us what you really think. Those go a long way too. Find us on Substack: https://www.howtobeanything.comAnd on Instagram: https://www.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.

In this episode, we meet Paddy Fanning, one of the world’s top sheepdog trainers. Paddy travels the globe—Norway, South Africa, Canada, Spain, and beyond—training dogs and judging competitions, but his journey started with a cowboy job in Canada and a dusty copy of Think Harmony with Horses. He shares how Ray Hunt’s philosophy of working with animals shaped not only how he trains dogs, but how he rebuilt his life after giving up drinking. It’s a story about instinct, trust, and the partnership between man and dog.We're a bootstrapped, indie podcast, so please text a friend and share your favorite episode. Every download helps. Don't forget to rate and review and tell us what you really think. Those go a long way too. Hear outtakes from this episode at: https://www.howtobeanything.com/p/irish-hillsides-and-south-africanFind us on Instagram: https://www.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.

Erin Bishop was building a successful consulting business when a close friend was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She brought him into her home and cared for him as he died, and what she saw changed her life. In this episode, Erin explains what a death doula does and what a good death can look like. We also explore death cafes, legacy projects, and how death can shape the way we live.We're a bootstrapped, indie podcast, so please text a friend and share your favorite episode. Every download helps. Don't forget to rate and review and tell us what you really think. Those go a long way too. Find us on Substack: howtobeanything.comFind 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.

How to Be Anything is a documentary-style podcast that profiles people with unusual, surprising, and wildly specific jobs. From puppeteers to tower climbers to scientists who search for dark matter underground and in space, each episode explores how people end up in jobs no one tells you about in school—and what it’s like to build a life doing something most of us have never heard of.The show is created and hosted by journalist Emily McCrary, and it blends deep curiosity and narrative storytelling to explore the stories that go beyond job titles.We're a bootstrapped, indie podcast, so please text a friend and share your favorite episode. Every download helps. Don't forget to rate and review and tell us what you really think. Those go a long way too. Find us on Substack: https://www.howtobeanything.comFind us on Instagram: https://www.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.

Journalist Emily McCrary talks to people with unusual jobs to find how how they got there and why they keep doing it. In season one, we'll meet a death doula, scientists who search for dark matter underground and in space, a D&D lore keeper, an award-winning sheepdog trainer, a physician who practices in the Arctic Circle, a puppetry artist, and more.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.