How To!

By Slate Podcasts

Education Business

What's How To! about?

You’ve got questions. Together, we get answers.
We all need advice, but sometimes it’s hard to know where to turn. Each week, Courtney Martin and Carvell Wallace bring a listener on to the show to solve their toughest problems with the help of world-class experts. It’s free therapy, and you’re invited.

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How To Face the A.I. Revolu...

12.09.2023

If you haven’t heard of ChatGPT, chances are you will soon. Maybe you’ve tried casually playing with the artificial intelligent chatbot. Maybe you’ve tried avoiding it. Or maybe ChatGPT is the new host of this podcast and you haven’t realized ...

How To! episodes:

12.09.2023 How To Face the A.I. Revolution (Encore) If you haven’t heard of ChatGPT, chances are you will soon. Maybe you’ve tried casually playing with the artificial intelligent chatbot. Maybe you’ve tried avoiding it. Or maybe ChatGPT is the new host of this podcast and you haven’t realized ...
12.05.2023 How To Carve Out Creative Time Allison is on the hunt for her next hobby. One that’s satisfying. One that she can stick with. One that will fit into her family’s very busy schedule. Except…maybe she’s thinking about that last part all wrong. On this episode ...
11.28.2023 How To Grieve an Estranged Parent A parent’s main job is to protect. But what happens when your parent doesn’t protect you? What happens when they not only let bad things happen to you, but they doubt and dismiss you when you ask them for help? ...
11.21.2023 How To Talk Politics Without Wrecking Relationships (Encore) On a recent phone call Shannon’s mom didn’t mince words: The only way she’d vote for Joe Biden is if Jesus himself comes down and tells her to. Growing up in a conservative household, Shannon understands her parents’ support for ...
11.14.2023 How To Get Through Menopause Hot flashes, fatigue, and vaginal dryness were some of Katie’s first clues that her body was changing. Half the population will experience menopause, yet misinformation still abounds—with doctors ill-prepared to talk to patients about this major life transition. On this ...
11.07.2023 How To Build a Marriage That Lasts To celebrate their third wedding anniversary, Anjali and Rahul are each selecting a surprise activity to do together. This happy couple loves spontaneity, so they’re concerned about someday growing bored in their relationship. They’re also feeling pressure to mark the ...
10.31.2023 How To Hit “Reset” on Your Career Our listener Abdullah has reached a plateau. A mid-career manager at a large electronics engineering corporation, he feels intellectually unstimulated. Even though Abdullah has a stable job with seniority, he dreams of going back to school and pursuing his true ...
10.24.2023 How To Let Go of Kid Clutter Kids generate so…much…stuff. A lot of it is memorable. Videos of their first words? So cute. Colorful drawings that progressively get better? Masterpieces. Trophies, stuffies, books? All valuable. The problem: There’s no way to keep everything. So how do you ...
10.17.2023 How To Build Trust With Co-Workers The beginning of the school year is a gauntlet for Andrea, who coaches teachers for a living. She needs to get to know the 52 educators she’ll work with in the coming months. All of them are new faces to ...
10.10.2023 How To Find Love Where You Least Expect It Camila is torn. She wants a partner. Someone who is ambitious. Someone who is financially secure. Someone who checks in with her at the end of the day. But most of her dates have turned out to be duds and ...
10.03.2023 How To Get Out of Debt Faster Than You Think (Encore) Irina and her husband are more than $100,000 in debt. They’re working to pay it off, but between monthly credit card bills, student loan payments, 401k contributions and spending on their new baby, their money is spread too thin. In ...
09.26.2023 How To Say Goodbye to Your Pet Like many pet parents, Zak Rosen and his wife lived for years in a state of denial about their beloved dog, Rumi. Then they learned that Rottweilers only tend to live about eight to 12 years, and there was no ...
09.19.2023 How To Follow Your Small Business Dream Sarah is a part-time pet groomer who dreams of opening up her own business. Having worked long hours for low wages, she can’t help thinking that she could earn more money and control her schedule if she starts her own ...
09.12.2023 How To Learn Any Language Fast Niky just isn’t jibing with Spanish. She’s tried courses, podcasts, apps, and even private tutors in order to make a connection with Spanish speakers around Toronto, at her job, and while traveling. But years into her language-learning journey, she’s not ...
09.05.2023 How To Find Your People Katie was ready to graduate from college when the pandemic interrupted everything. Unceremoniously cut-off from her group of friends, she’s now in a new chapter of her life but struggling more than ever to find her people. Katie’s friendships at ...
08.29.2023 How To Navigate Adult Autism It’s a family joke that Dave and his 13 year-old son are the same person. So when his son found out he is autistic, Dave realized that he, too, is on the autism spectrum. The label is a comfort—a reassurance ...
08.22.2023 How To Fill an Empty Nest (Encore) 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 ...
08.15.2023 How To Live Anywhere in the World Have you ever wanted to move to a new country? Picking up and starting over internationally can be rewarding, but also nerve-wracking. Our listener Sara has lived overseas for more than a decade, but she recently moved to Switzerland and ...
08.08.2023 How To Cope With Climate Anxiety As the massive Caldor fire blazed towards South Lake Tahoe in 2021, Joyce knew she had to get out. “The sky was red. It was like hell on earth,” she remembers. Her family got to safety and her house was ...
08.01.2023 How To Show Up For a Friend With Cancer When Gwendolyn found out her friend was diagnosed with cancer, she knew she wanted to help. She just didn’t know how. Her friend lives hundreds of miles away. How can she help in a way that’s more meaningful than sending ...
07.25.2023 How To Deal With a Difficult Parent Every year J. and her parents fly thousands of miles, meeting in the middle for their family vacation. A vacation that often leads to shouting and tears. J. and her father have a rocky relationship. Little disagreements often lead to ...
07.18.2023 How To Make Aging Easier for Everyone Caregivers provide an estimated 600 billion dollars in free labor each year, according to the AARP. This week’s listener, Dani is one such caregiver. She and her partner found themselves navigating the confusing world of Medicare and Medicaid, estate planning, ...
07.11.2023 How To Hack Any Bureaucracy When Gwen applied for unemployment during the early days of the pandemic, she never thought she’d still be waiting for her benefits years later. Despite hours on the phone, countless emails and even a court appearance, Gwen is haunted by ...
07.04.2023 How To Stop Finding Your Self-worth Through Your Job (w/ Gloria Chan Packer) On this bonus episode from our friends at the How To Be A Better Human podcast: For some of us it’s easy to lose ourselves in our work. But a lack of boundaries between your personal and work life is ...
06.27.2023 How To Find Genuine Happiness The last few years have been overwhelming for Tracy. Her career was demanding and she experienced multiple deaths in her family. Recently, she changed jobs and is in a better place with her mental health, but something is still missing ...
06.20.2023 How To Find the Gems in All Your Junk Most people have something they’re holding on to. For Lesley and Alex, that’s some old baseball and basketball cards that are collecting dust in their attic. For Kathy, that’s a house full of antiques. They’ve all been wanting to pare ...
06.13.2023 How To Quit Your Calling Amy and Sarah are high school English teachers who both want to quit the classroom, but for very different reasons. Amy has over 200 students, and tensions between teachers and parents are on the rise so she’s “beyond burned out.” ...
06.06.2023 How To Help Teachers Thrive Today there are about four million teachers in America, and nearly a third of them are thinking about leaving their jobs. It has become harder to be a teacher in the U.S. due to a lack of resources, political meddling, ...
05.30.2023 How To Sleep Apart to Save Your Relationship Sleep is objectively worse when splitting a bed. Yet that’s the default for most couples. But that doesn’t mean sharing the covers is easy. Especially when one person is having trouble falling or staying asleep. On this episode of How ...
05.23.2023 How To Sleep Like a Champ Vanessa isn’t a night owl. Yet, often, you can find her lying awake desperately trying to turn off her brain. When her partner stays over she often resorts to the couch just to get some rest. On this episode of ...
05.16.2023 How To Deliver Bad News Better ‘I’ve got bad news’ is a sentence no one wants to hear. But at some point, all of us will either have to deliver bad news or will be on the receiving end. So what can make these gut-wrenching conversations ...
05.12.2023 Sponsored Content: Secret Sauce for Business Owners It’s not easy to start a business. It’s even harder to build a successful one. Luckily, we can ask experts, entrepreneurs, and business leaders for advice. In this special Slate episode, brought to you by Bank of America, we’ve gathered ...
05.09.2023 Dear Prudie: My Husband Wants Our 9-Year-Old Son to Play Tackle Football. Help! On this bonus episode from our friends at Slate's Dear Prudence podcast—Bomani Jones (host of HBO’s Game Theory With Bomani Jones and The Right Time With Bomani Jones) joins Prudie (Jenée Desmond-Harris) to answer questions from letter writers about workplace ...
05.02.2023 How To Raise Kids in a Nation Full of Guns Guns are now the leading cause of death for children in America. Each tragedy can be visceral, whether it’s in your community or across the country. And it’s especially heartbreaking when your kid voices that fear directly, as our listener ...
04.25.2023 How To Face the A.I. Revolution If you haven’t heard of ChatGPT, chances are you will soon. Maybe you’ve tried casually playing with the artificial intelligent chatbot. Maybe you’ve tried avoiding it. Or maybe ChatGPT is the new host of this podcast and you haven’t realized ...
04.18.2023 How To Start Reading Books Again Kate stopped reading in 2016. Since then, she’s tried to find her way back to it but something’s not clicking, and it’s left a book-shaped hole in her heart. Reading used to be something she really enjoyed, took pride in, ...
04.11.2023 How To Breathe Like a Navy SEAL John has spent years training to become a Pararescueman, a member of Air Force Special Warfare tasked with recovering downed military personnel around the globe. He has pushed himself past countless obstacles and trials, except one — holding his breath ...
04.04.2023 How To Succeed at Social Media Emily is a successful career and executive coach in Ohio, who has done well finding clients through word-of-mouth. But in order to expand her business she knows she has to up her online marketing game. The only catch? She is ...
03.28.2023 How To Bounce Back From a Layoff On a recent workday, Pauline woke up and logged into her computer from home … only to find an email saying she was being laid off — effective immediately. She and her entire team, many of them working remotely, instantly ...
03.21.2023 The Upside of Stress: A Slight Change of Plans with Dr. Maya Shankar This week we present a special episode from A Slight Change of Plans hosted by Dr. Maya Shankar, a cognitive scientist who studies human behavior and was our featured expert on How To Stick To Your New Year's Resolutions. Maya's ...
03.14.2023 How To Make Imposter Syndrome Your Superpower When Leslie landed her dream engineering job right out of college, she was elated but also worried she was a tad unqualified—even though she has the skills and expertise. Since then imposter syndrome has reared its ugly head on a ...
03.07.2023 How To ‘Chaos Cook’ With Samin Nosrat Cooking is one of the most basic human activities. We’ve probably been doing it since the discovery of fire and, yet, it’s more than just fuel. It’s culture. It’s comfort. It’s increasingly content. The problem is when we have such ...
02.28.2023 How To Style Your Home Like a Pro This summer, Hillary and her fiancé will be moving into their first home together. It’s an upgrade from their apartment, and they get to design it from scratch. Hillary is really looking forward to entertaining friends and even growing their ...
02.21.2023 How To Manage Your Precious Time Joey is a young creative living in Australia who can’t decide which hat to wear. Should it be songwriting, skateboarding, acting, or should he focus more on his day job as a retail clerk? Fitting everything in during the week ...
02.14.2023 Encore: How To Find Your First Kiss at 38 Sharon is 38 and never been kissed. This, as she acknowledges, is “a bit weird.” As a nurse who loves ballroom dancing, Sharon is smart, funny, and attractive. At the same time, she’s deeply religious and has been waiting so ...
02.07.2023 How To Face Your Kid’s Future Keith prides himself on being a good dad to his three sons. But in a post-pandemic world with looming student debt and uncertain opportunities, the future can be really scary. He’s especially worried about his middle son Ben, an introvert ...
01.31.2023 How To Command a Room Yuzuha has been interviewing people for six years. She’s a journalist based in Japan who writes about business and technology but has dreamed of working in broadcast, interviewing people for an audience. Her first challenge is coming sooner than she ...
01.24.2023 How To Love Your Face Earlier this year, our listener, Rell, nearly failed a promotion. Not because she was unprepared or unqualified, but because she didn’t maintain enough eye contact with the interviewers. Rell’s eye hasn’t been fully receiving information since she was born, a ...
01.17.2023 How To Stick to Your New Year’s Resolutions January is barely two weeks old and already some of our ambitious New Year’s resolutions may be starting to fade. No shame! Approximately 90% of resolution makers don’t reach their goal. Which means there’s gotta be a better way. Our ...
01.10.2023 How To End Political Violence (From an Ex-Gang Leader) In the wake of the anniversary of the January 6th insurrection, and now similar riots in Brazil’s capital, we’re picking up our conversation about how to reduce political violence. In the first episode of our two-part series, we heard from ...

Older episodes

How To!

What's How To! about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

How To! episodes:

How To Face the A.I. Revolution (Encore)

How To Carve Out Creative Time

How To Grieve an Estranged Parent

How To Talk Politics Without Wrecking Relationships (Encore)

How To Get Through Menopause

How To Build a Marriage That Lasts

How To Hit “Reset” on Your Career

How To Let Go of Kid Clutter

How To Build Trust With Co-Workers

How To Find Love Where You Least Expect It

How To Get Out of Debt Faster Than You Think (Encore)

How To Say Goodbye to Your Pet

How To Follow Your Small Business Dream

How To Learn Any Language Fast

How To Find Your People

How To Navigate Adult Autism

How To Fill an Empty Nest (Encore)

How To Live Anywhere in the World

How To Cope With Climate Anxiety

How To Show Up For a Friend With Cancer

How To Deal With a Difficult Parent

How To Make Aging Easier for Everyone

How To Hack Any Bureaucracy

How To Stop Finding Your Self-worth Through Your Job (w/ Gloria Chan Packer)

How To Find Genuine Happiness

How To Find the Gems in All Your Junk

How To Quit Your Calling

How To Help Teachers Thrive

How To Sleep Apart to Save Your Relationship

How To Sleep Like a Champ

How To Deliver Bad News Better

Sponsored Content: Secret Sauce for Business Owners

Dear Prudie: My Husband Wants Our 9-Year-Old Son to Play Tackle Football. Help!

How To Raise Kids in a Nation Full of Guns

How To Face the A.I. Revolution

How To Start Reading Books Again

How To Breathe Like a Navy SEAL

How To Succeed at Social Media

How To Bounce Back From a Layoff

The Upside of Stress: A Slight Change of Plans with Dr. Maya Shankar

How To Make Imposter Syndrome Your Superpower

How To ‘Chaos Cook’ With Samin Nosrat

How To Style Your Home Like a Pro

How To Manage Your Precious Time

Encore: How To Find Your First Kiss at 38

How To Face Your Kid’s Future

How To Command a Room

How To Love Your Face

How To Stick to Your New Year’s Resolutions

How To End Political Violence (From an Ex-Gang Leader)

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