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What It's Like To Be... with Dan Heath

Dan Heath
What It's Like To Be... with Dan Heath
Latest episode

74 episodes

  • What It's Like To Be... with Dan Heath

    A Custom Harvester

    05/05/2026 | 35 mins.
    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 Spotify playlist with some essential episodes from our back catalogue.
    GOT A COMMENT OR SUGGESTION? Email us at [email protected]
    FOR SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES: Email us at [email protected]
    WANT TO BE ON THE SHOW? Leave us a voicemail at (919) 213-0456. We’ll ask you to answer two questions:
    1. What’s a word or phrase that only someone from your profession would be likely to know and what does it mean?
    2. What’s a specific story you tell your friends that happened on the job? It could be funny, sad, anxiety-making, pride-inducing or otherwise.
    We can’t respond to every message, but we do listen to all of them! We’ll follow up if it's a good fit.
  • What It's Like To Be... with Dan Heath

    A Funeral Director

    21/04/2026 | 37 mins.
    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 Director on the surge of women graduating from mortuary school 
    WANT MORE EPISODE SUGGESTIONS? Grab our What It's Like To Be... "starter pack". It's a curated Spotify playlist with some essential episodes from our back catalogue.
    GOT A COMMENT OR SUGGESTION? Email us at [email protected]
    FOR SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES: Email us at [email protected]
    WANT TO BE ON THE SHOW? Leave us a voicemail at (919) 213-0456. We’ll ask you to answer two questions:
    1. What’s a word or phrase that only someone from your profession would be likely to know and what does it mean?
    2. What’s a specific story you tell your friends that happened on the job? It could be funny, sad, anxiety-making, pride-inducing or otherwise.
    We can’t respond to every message, but we do listen to all of them! We’ll follow up if it's a good fit.
  • What It's Like To Be... with Dan Heath

    An Aerospace Engineer

    07/04/2026 | 37 mins.
    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 bio
    More about the Perseverance rover
    Swati Mohan spoke with us in a personal capacity. The views expressed in this episode are her own and do not represent the views of NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or any other organization.
    WANT MORE EPISODE SUGGESTIONS? Grab our What It's Like To Be... "starter pack". It's a curated Spotify playlist with some essential episodes from our back catalogue.
    GOT A COMMENT OR SUGGESTION? Email us at [email protected]
    FOR SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES: Email us at [email protected]
    WANT TO BE ON THE SHOW? Leave us a voicemail at (919) 213-0456. We’ll ask you to answer two questions:
    1. What’s a word or phrase that only someone from your profession would be likely to know and what does it mean?
    2. What’s a specific story you tell your friends that happened on the job? It could be funny, sad, anxiety-making, pride-inducing or otherwise.
    We can’t respond to every message, but we do listen to all of them! We’ll follow up if it's a good fit.
  • What It's Like To Be... with Dan Heath

    A Diplomat

    24/03/2026 | 34 mins.
    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 essential episodes from our back catalogue.
    GOT A COMMENT OR SUGGESTION? Email us at [email protected]
    FOR SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES: Email us at [email protected]
    WANT TO BE ON THE SHOW? Leave us a voicemail at (919) 213-0456. We’ll ask you to answer two questions:
    1. What’s a word or phrase that only someone from your profession would be likely to know and what does it mean?
    2. What’s a specific story you tell your friends that happened on the job? It could be funny, sad, anxiety-making, pride-inducing or otherwise.
    We can’t respond to every message, but we do listen to all of them! We’ll follow up if it's a good fit.
  • What It's Like To Be... with Dan Heath

    A Lineman

    10/03/2026 | 30 mins.
    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 from our back catalogue.
    GOT A COMMENT OR SUGGESTION? Email us at [email protected]
    FOR SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES: Email us at [email protected]
    WANT TO BE ON THE SHOW? Leave us a voicemail at (919) 213-0456. We’ll ask you to answer two questions:
    1. What’s a word or phrase that only someone from your profession would be likely to know and what does it mean?
    2. What’s a specific story you tell your friends that happened on the job? It could be funny, sad, anxiety-making, pride-inducing or otherwise.
    We can’t respond to every message, but we do listen to all of them! We’ll follow up if it's a good fit.

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About What It's Like To Be... with Dan Heath

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.
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