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.
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7. How to Be a Forensic Artist
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.
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Bonus: "My Friend's a Rapper!" (HTBA Listeners Tell Their Stories)
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.
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6. How to Search for Dark Matter Underground and in Space
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.
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5. How to Be a Foley Sound Artist
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.
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. This isn’t a self-help show or a career coaching podcast. How to Be Anything is for the job-curious, the creatively restless, and anyone who likes eavesdropping on someone else’s weird path through life. It brings a literary, documentary sensibility to work and identity.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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Australia