What It’s Like to Be…an Air Traffic Controller
Sequencing departures like a moving puzzle, scrambling when a jet takes off without clearance, and catching what radar misses with a glance out the window with Michael Rejent, an air traffic controller.
Dan Heath
Dan Heath is the New York Times bestselling coauthor/author of six books, including Made to Stick, Switch, and The Power of Moments. His most recent book is Reset: How to Change What’s Not Working. He also hosts the award-winning podcast What It’s Like to Be…, which explores what it’s like to walk in the shoes of people from different professions (a mystery novelist, a cattle rancher, a forensic accountant, and more).
What It’s Like to Be…a Flight Attendant
Hugging a mother through an anxiety attack, bidding for the best routes, and absorbing strangers’ confessions at 35,000 feet with Linda Beall, a flight attendant.
What It’s Like to Be…an Airline Pilot
Shooting cat-three landings in the fog, using the “voice of God” on unruly passengers, and declaring Mayday after an engine fire with Paul Drusch, a commercial airline pilot.
What It’s Like to Be…a Clinical Ethicist
Untangling who gets to speak for a dying patient, weighing a treatment’s benefits against its burdens, and searching for clarity in the grayest corners of healthcare with Esther Berkowitz, a clinical ethicist.
What It’s Like to Be…a Correctional Officer
Grinding through 16-hour shifts, standing behind inmates (never in front), and trying to stay human in an inhuman environment with Bill Farrell, a correctional officer in Massachusetts.
What It’s Like to Be…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.
What It’s Like to Be…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 It’s Like to Be…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 It’s Like to Be…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.
What It’s Like to Be…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.