How To!

By Slate Podcasts

Education Business

What's How To! about?

You’ve got questions. Together, we get answers.
Each week on How To!, Amanda Ripley (bestselling author of High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out, The Unthinkable, and The Smartest Kids in the World) takes on listeners’ toughest problems and, with the help of experts, finds the answers to questions you’ve always wanted to ask, but couldn’t. Until now.

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How To Make Sexual Consent ...

05.17.2022

After experiencing multiple instances of sexual assault, Julia often feels sexually disconnected from her own body. She wants to be aware of her boundaries and find pleasure in new relationships going forward. On this episode of How To!, we bring ...

How To! episodes:

05.17.2022 How To Make Sexual Consent Sexy After experiencing multiple instances of sexual assault, Julia often feels sexually disconnected from her own body. She wants to be aware of her boundaries and find pleasure in new relationships going forward. On this episode of How To!, we bring ...
05.10.2022 How To Be a Lazy Genius When Samantha and her husband moved from a condo to a fairly large house, they knew they’d have a lot of updating and upkeep to do. But they had no idea how much time their new chores would gobble up. ...
05.03.2022 How To Bounce Back From Burnout When Betsy joined her last workplace, she thought it was a perfect fit. It was on a list of Best Places to Work and she got to be creative while helping people. But as the startup rapidly grew, the company ...
04.26.2022 How To (Really) Help Refugees When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August, the Female Tactical Platoon, a unit of elite Afghan soldiers, knew they had to evacuate. “If they were captured, they would be killed,” according to a Green Beret who worked alongside them ...
04.19.2022 How To Change a Mascot Without Tearing Apart Your School The town of Dartmouth, Massachusetts is in the middle of a mascot debate that’s escalated quickly. Our listener Keith grew up there and his kids attend the high school in question. He’s been vocal about his support for changing the ...
04.12.2022 How To Solve Your Own Medical Mystery When Mike was wracked with a series of unexplained headaches in 2017, he initially chalked it up to being a stressed out grad student. But the pain became debilitating and his symptoms only multiplied from there. His doctors are stumped ...
04.05.2022 How To Start Writing (w/ Anna Quindlen & John Dickerson) You’ve probably heard about the importance of journaling, putting thoughts on paper to help process the daily vicissitudes of life. But it’s easy to stall once you see a blank page or get self conscious about what exactly you’re writing. ...
03.29.2022 How To Speak Up So Others Listen If you were to pop by Mary Ann’s PhD discussion group, you’d most likely find her quietly, but intently, listening to the debate going on around her. But when it comes time to actually throw in her two cents, she ...
03.22.2022 How To Stand Up To a Workplace Bully When a fellow employee started bullying Christy at her workplace she took the situation to her supervisor, Human Resources, and even filed grievances with her union. But the situation never improved. In fact, it got worse to the point where ...
03.15.2022 How To Make Friends... Like a Man After Zach heard our “How To Make Friends as an Adult” episode, which coincidentally featured all women, he and a few other male listeners wrote in questioning how useful it was for men. He wondered if we could address the ...
03.08.2022 How To Have Happy Regrets Courtenay has more than a few regrets, starting with her career. Despite her accomplishments as an opera singer, she wishes she’d prioritized her professional goals, become more proficient on the piano and with foreign languages. Then there are the personal ...
03.01.2022 How To Stop ‘Having It All’ (Before You End Up With Nothing) Janey is the very definition of a woman trying to “have it all.” She’s an occupational therapist by day, a ghost writer for influencers by night and in between co-hosts a podcast. On top of that, she has two sons ...
02.22.2022 Encore: How To Win Gold Without Losing Yourself Winning the Olympics is everything Steve Mesler ever wanted. So when he and his U.S. bobsled teammates stood atop the podium at the 2010 Vancouver Games, his life seemed golden in every way. But soon after his triumph, Steve began ...
02.15.2022 How To Fight With Your Parents It’s been two decades since Maggie’s mom has gone to the doctor and her health is incredibly….shaky. Maggie’s mom has severe asthma and allergies which has basically isolated her from the world. With isolation has come anger and bitterness. Maggie ...
02.08.2022 How To Beat Hackers at Their Own Game Susan was concerned when she first learned that someone was impersonating her on Facebook, but that soon turned to anger when she realized the imposter had sent inappropriate photos to her real life friends. Susan tried and failed to get ...
02.01.2022 How To Crack Up Your Coworkers (Without Being Offensive) Last week we learned about using the four different styles of humor to your advantage, and who makes a good target for a joke. But what if you read the room wrong and absolutely bomb? On this episode of How ...
01.25.2022 How To Make Humor Your Superpower Did you know that we, as a society, have fallen off a comedy cliff? No joke. Studies have shown that we largely stop laughing when we enter our mid-twenties, which is a shame because delighting in humor has a ton ...
01.18.2022 Encore: How To Succeed When Everyone's Mad at You Have you ever had to make an impossible decision? One that doesn’t have an obvious “right” answer. One that someone will inevitably hate. John knows this feeling all too well. He’s the superintendent for a mid-size school district in California. ...
01.11.2022 How To Squash Your Fear of Bugs (and Other Phobias) Every year, around the same time, Peter’s apartment comes alive. The shadows begin to scuttle and the pipes creak with creepy crawlies. At least that’s how it feels. Peter is freaked out by Israel’s large flying cockroaches. Logically, he knows ...
01.04.2022 How To Eat Whatever You Want Every January nearly 75 percent of Americans resolve to make their lives better by losing weight. But this year we’re breaking free from the cycle of restrictive eating and spiraling shame. Journalist Virginia Sole-Smith, host and author of Burnt Toast ...
12.28.2021 How To Break the Spell of Social Media James is head over heels in love with his wife. But there’s one thing that keeps getting in between them … the glow of her smartphone. His wife is constantly scrolling social media or staging photo ops with James and ...
12.21.2021 How To Save a Friend from a Bad Relationship One night a few months ago Elaine got a phone call out of the blue from a co-worker. She and her 12-year old daughter had checked herself into a hotel after she was beaten by husband. Elaine took her co-worker ...
12.14.2021 Our Favorite Advice of 2021 Here at How To! headquarters, we give and receive a lot of good advice. This year we ran faster, kept cool in a crisis, had the best sex of our lives, stopped snoring, and even won the Olympics. The How ...
12.07.2021 When To Say Goodbye to a Difficult Dog Deciding to give up your dog is not something we talk about much, especially now when our pets are more like family members. But what do you do when your dog has behavioral problems that threaten the safety of others? ...
11.30.2021 How To Get Your Dog to Stop Barking (Without Barking Back) Approximately 23 million families in the US got a pet during the pandemic, many of them puppies. At their best, dogs truly are “man’s best friend,” providing real comfort and companionship. But it can be tough when your new dog ...
11.23.2021 How To Embrace Your Anti-Vax Family This Holiday Season Jackie is newly engaged, but thoughts about her big day fill her with dread, not excitement. Jackie and her fiance want to have only vaccinated people at their wedding to protect some vulnerable family members from COVID-19. However, requiring vaccination ...
11.16.2021 How To Advance Your Career by Quitting Your Job For nearly a decade, Jono devoted all his time and energy to creating and running a customized shoe company. But, unfortunately, his start-up didn’t survive the pandemic. Now Jono is in the tricky position of transitioning from CEO to working ...
11.09.2021 How To Get Your Book Published Shanimarie has a story in her heart, one she believes the world needs to hear. It’s a story of immigration, sacrifice and a mother’s love that this first-grade teacher wishes she had read as a young girl who moved from ...
11.02.2021 What To Do When Your Husband Becomes Your Boss This episode is supported by Work Check, an original podcast from Atlassian. Bethany was ecstatic when her husband Travis got a promotion. They’ve been co-workers for over a decade and Bethany really valued being on equal footing. But that power ...
10.26.2021 How To Beat the Dreaded Midday Slump For a behind the scenes look into some of the articles we read when we create the show, check out our Pocket collection at http://getpocket.com/slate. Every day around 2:00 p.m. Rob hits a brick wall. A busy job and two ...
10.19.2021 How To Make Friends as an Adult Grace and Nikki both need more friends. Grace is an ICU nurse whose best friends have moved away. Nikki is an electrical engineer who worked remotely for the last year and is now moving to a new city. Making friends ...
10.12.2021 How To Keep Cool in a Crisis Last week we learned how to stop a public fight before it starts. But despite our best intentions, ugly confrontations still happen—sometimes with tragic consequences. On this episode of How To!, the second in a two part-series, Dan Christensen, a ...
10.05.2021 How To Stop a Fight Before It Starts Things are a little more tense than usual these days. Stress and anxiety levels are up and so are fights in public. We’ve all heard stories of bad behavior in restaurants, airports, hospitals, school board meetings, etc. So on this ...
09.28.2021 How To Coach Squirrelly Kids (and Screaming Parents) When Kelly volunteered to be the head coach for his son’s baseball team, he was nervous. He had no formal training, but he knew he wanted his players to have equal playing time and, more importantly, have fun. Which they ...
09.21.2021 How To Fill an Empty Nest Susan never really got over saying goodbye to her eldest daughter, who left for college four years ago. She knew it would be sad, but she didn’t expect to be nauseous. Now her youngest is applying to college, and she’s ...
09.14.2021 How To Crack Your Kid Like a CIA Operative Every kid sneaks a cookie from the cookie jar, but Jamie’s 8 year-old daughter Simone has taken it to the next level. If you look under her pillow or in the back of her closet, you’ll find stashes of candy ...
09.07.2021 How To Live With a Dirty Family Secret Usually when something enters Rachel’s parents’ home, it never leaves. Growing up, Rachel and her siblings tried to clean out the growing piles of junk, but her mom would often dig into the trash to retrieve whatever was tossed. Rachel ...
08.31.2021 How To Succeed When Everyone's Mad at You Have you ever had to make an impossible decision? One that doesn’t have an obvious “right” answer. One that someone will inevitably hate. John knows this feeling all too well. He’s the superintendent for a mid-size school district in California. ...
08.24.2021 How To Beat Your Hidden Biases Do you think of yourself as a “good” person? Most of us do. You probably show others kindness and respect—no matter their age, gender, sexuality, or race, right? But our unconscious biases are often more powerful than we realize. In ...
08.17.2021 How To Repair a Broken Relationship Before It's Too Late It’s painful for Barbara to think back on her son Ethan’s childhood. For years Ethan was caught between feuding parents until, one day, Ethan went to live with his dad and never came back. Barbara regrets not fighting harder for ...
08.10.2021 How To Reconnect with Your Kid After a Nasty Divorce Barbara survived a divorce so brutal that she refers to it as ‘The War of the Roses.’ Perhaps the most painful casualty was the severing of her relationship with her son, Ethan. Decades have passed and Ethan is now married ...
08.03.2021 How To Never Miss a Deadline Avalon is driven, creative, and… can’t meet a deadline to save her life. In her defense, she’s a card-carrying member of the gig economy, juggling a complicated schedule as a DJ and visual artist. Avalon’s tried to organize her life ...
07.27.2021 How To Ditch Your Distractions Once and For All There’s one thing that all of Helena’s personal projects have in common: they remain unfinished. The family photo album is empty, as is her mom’s recipe book. And the lavender garden is still unplanted. Helena is not lazy. In fact, ...
07.20.2021 Congrats, You Won the Olympics. Now What? Winning the Olympics is everything Steve Mesler ever wanted. So when he and his U.S. bobsled teammates stood atop the podium at the 2010 Vancouver Games, his life seemed golden in every way. But soon after his triumph, Steve began ...
07.13.2021 How To Make a Big Purchase Without Panicking Alexandra and her boyfriend want to buy a house, but they’re looking in one of the hottest housing markets in the U.S. So when they got outbid for their dream home, Alexandra was secretly relieved. Spending money, even if it’s ...
07.06.2021 How To Fight Outrageous Medical Bills Rich thought nothing of going to the hospital for a routine colonoscopy—until he got the bill. Even with insurance, Rich is on the hook for nearly $2,000, way more than he ever expected. It’s particularly painful because Rich was planning ...
06.29.2021 How To Trick Your Brain Into Running Longer Have you ever thought about running but been too intimidated to start? Or maybe you’ve already got an after-work jogging routine and need tips on how to increase your endurance? On this episode of How To!, we reveal the game-changing, ...
06.22.2021 I'm a Recovering Alcoholic. I'm Afraid My Kids Will End Up Like Me. Lee is worried that one day soon her 25-year-old adopted daughter, who is pregnant and struggling with a drug addiction, will show up on her doorstep with a baby in tow. How will she be able to explain the situation ...
06.15.2021 After a Year of Survival, How to Start Living Again For the past year, Brandon has been terrified of leaving his apartment. And so he’s settled into an extreme pandemic routine. He cooks all of his own meals, has yet to see his parents, and on the rare occasion he ...
06.08.2021 How To Have the Best Sex of Your Life Ever since she started taking a new medication a few years ago, Meme is worried that she’s lost her sex drive. She still has a great relationship with her husband, but she isn’t interested in sex the way that she ...

Older episodes

How To!

What's How To! about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

How To! episodes:

How To Make Sexual Consent Sexy

How To Be a Lazy Genius

How To Bounce Back From Burnout

How To (Really) Help Refugees

How To Change a Mascot Without Tearing Apart Your School

How To Solve Your Own Medical Mystery

How To Start Writing (w/ Anna Quindlen & John Dickerson)

How To Speak Up So Others Listen

How To Stand Up To a Workplace Bully

How To Make Friends... Like a Man

How To Have Happy Regrets

How To Stop ‘Having It All’ (Before You End Up With Nothing)

Encore: How To Win Gold Without Losing Yourself

How To Fight With Your Parents

How To Beat Hackers at Their Own Game

How To Crack Up Your Coworkers (Without Being Offensive)

How To Make Humor Your Superpower

Encore: How To Succeed When Everyone's Mad at You

How To Squash Your Fear of Bugs (and Other Phobias)

How To Eat Whatever You Want

How To Break the Spell of Social Media

How To Save a Friend from a Bad Relationship

Our Favorite Advice of 2021

When To Say Goodbye to a Difficult Dog

How To Get Your Dog to Stop Barking (Without Barking Back)

How To Embrace Your Anti-Vax Family This Holiday Season

How To Advance Your Career by Quitting Your Job

How To Get Your Book Published

What To Do When Your Husband Becomes Your Boss

How To Beat the Dreaded Midday Slump

How To Make Friends as an Adult

How To Keep Cool in a Crisis

How To Stop a Fight Before It Starts

How To Coach Squirrelly Kids (and Screaming Parents)

How To Fill an Empty Nest

How To Crack Your Kid Like a CIA Operative

How To Live With a Dirty Family Secret

How To Succeed When Everyone's Mad at You

How To Beat Your Hidden Biases

How To Repair a Broken Relationship Before It's Too Late

How To Reconnect with Your Kid After a Nasty Divorce

How To Never Miss a Deadline

How To Ditch Your Distractions Once and For All

Congrats, You Won the Olympics. Now What?

How To Make a Big Purchase Without Panicking

How To Fight Outrageous Medical Bills

How To Trick Your Brain Into Running Longer

I'm a Recovering Alcoholic. I'm Afraid My Kids Will End Up Like Me.

After a Year of Survival, How to Start Living Again

How To Have the Best Sex of Your Life

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