What It's Like To Be... with Dan Heath
Dan Heath
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Curious what it would be like to walk in someone else’s (work) shoes? Join New York Times bestselling author Dan Heath as he explores the world of work, one profession at a time, and interviews people who love what they do.
Recent Episodes
MAY 5, 2026
A Custom Harvester
Harvesting five million bushels of wheat and corn from Texas to Montana, outrunning hailstorms that decimate a year's income in 20 minutes, and running a multimillion-dollar convoy of equipment down the highway with Josh Beckley, a third-generation custom harvester from Kansas. Why do farmers outsource the harvesting of their own crops? And what happens when you drive a combine into a ditch? WANT MORE EPISODE SUGGESTIONS? Grab our What It's Like To Be... "starter pack". It's a curated Sp...
35 MIN
APR 21, 2026
A Funeral Director
Guiding grieving families through arrangement meetings, orchestrating meaningful memorial services within days, and preparing bodies for viewing with Heather Hill, a funeral director in North Carolina. What's different about doing makeup on a dead person? And what is it like to field a death call? LINKS & REFERENCES Heather writes about her work on her website.She's a funeral director at Renaissance Funeral Home in Raleigh, North Carolina."The Future is Female" - American Funeral Dir...
37 MIN
APR 7, 2026
An Aerospace Engineer
Landing the Perseverance rover on Mars, working in clean rooms to minimize the microbial bug count, and slogging through hundreds of engineering trade-offs with Swati Mohan, an aerospace engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. What are the "seven minutes of terror"? And is there evidence of past life on Mars? LINKS & REFERENCES: Watch Swati voice the landing of Perseverance in 2021.Swati's official NASA bioMore about the Perseverance roverSwati Mohan spoke with us in a personal capa...
37 MIN
MAR 24, 2026
A Diplomat
Defusing a crisis after an ambassador hinted at a preemptive strike on Russia, delivering demarches in multiple languages, and surviving the frantic evacuation of the Kabul embassy with John Johnson, a retired diplomat who spent more than twenty years in the US Foreign Service. Do diplomats still send "cables" in the 21st century? And what does "not/not" mean? WANT MORE EPISODE SUGGESTIONS? Grab our What It's Like To Be... "starter pack". It's a curated Spotify playlist with some essenti...
34 MIN
MAR 10, 2026
A Lineman
Wiring a neighborhood back to life after a tornado, coveting the work of helicopter linemen in Faraday suits, and surviving the collapse of a rotten utility pole with Elden Rivas, a journeyman lineman in Houston, Texas. What is the one sound on the crew radio that stops every lineman cold? And why does a squirrel on a transformer mean easy money? WANT MORE EPISODE SUGGESTIONS? Grab our What It's Like To Be... "starter pack". It's a curated Spotify playlist with some essential episodes fr...
30 MIN
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