The Future Is How

Ruchika Sikri spent 25+ years in tech (Google, Microsoft, Cisco) and led wellbeing and mindfulness learning at Google for 15 years, scaling programs like Search Inside Yourself and the gPause community of practice to more than 120,000 employees with a community of 400+ volunteers. Today she is a Founding Partner of Wisdom Ventures - which recently closed an oversubscribed 77.7 million dollar fund,...

Sonja Lyubomirsky is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at UC Riverside and the author of The How of Happiness , The Myths of Happiness , and her new book How to Feel Loved (with Harry Reis). Her work has reached readers in 39 countries. In this conversation she shares the five mindsets that help us feel more loved, why being known matters more than being impressive, the vulnerability paradox...

What's left of us when AI can generate the idea, write the memo, and build the prototype faster than we ever could? Brice Challamel, Head of AI Strategy and Adoption at OpenAI offers a surprising answer: we become stewards of our own intent. In this episode he shares why he doesn't ask AI for answers in the morning but for questions, how a movie-night app turned into a love letter to his family, w...

Dushka Zapata has written 17 books and is one of the most-read writers on Quora. Dan Roam wrote "The Back of the Napkin" and has taught Google, Microsoft, and the U.S. Navy how to think with pictures. For the first time on this show, I have two guests at the same mic - recorded inside my geodesic dome, words on one side, pictures on the other. Together we explore why imagining your future too clea...

In this episode, Frederik sits down with Laura Jones, CMO of Instacart, to explore how connection isn't just a strategy, but a way of leading, seeing, and creating. Laura shares the moment she stood outside a trailer on Stanford's campus, placed her hand on it, and knew: "Whatever is inside here will change my life." That moment became the beginning of a career that took her to Google, Uber, and o...

Bill Burnett co-wrote the number one New York Times bestseller Designing Your Life and helped over a million people figure out what to do with their lives. Now he's asking the harder question: once you're doing it, does it actually feel worth it? In this episode, Bill and I explore why fulfillment might be a dead end, how Maslow got his own pyramid wrong, and what it really takes to design a life...

Intro What if the luckiest people you know aren't lucky at all - but simply better at a skill most of us were never taught? In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Tina Seelig, Stanford professor, author of 18 books, and one of the most influential voices on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Tina's brand new book "What I Wish I Knew About Luck" (HarperCollins) reframes everything we think...

At a glance In this episode of The Future Is HOW, I sit down with Dr. Léa Steinacker — social scientist, bestselling author, and co-founder of ada Learning. Léa opens with a surprising observation: the moments technology makes her feel most human are not the moments of wonder — they are the moments of frustration. And from there, the conversation goes somewhere unexpected. We talk about running al...

At a glance In this episode of The Future Is HOW , I sit down with world-renowned master perfumer Christophe Laudamiel to explore one of the most powerful yet overlooked senses shaping our future: smell. Christophe shares how his journey into perfumery began, what mentors in the fragrance world taught him, and why scent is far more complex than we usually imagine. Together we explore the deep conn...

The Future Is How with Fynn Kliemann. In this episode of The Future Is HOW, Frederik G. Pferdt speaks with Fynn Kliemann about courage, AI, entrepreneurship, and creating without permission. Fynn shares the one thing he plans to do with his mother that he’s never done before, the project he’s secretly building that no one has seen yet, and why he recently stopped something that he was really good...

Episode Summary Money is not just something we earn, spend, or invest. It is something that trains us every day . In this episode of The Future Is HOW , Frederik G. Pferdt sits down with Markus Koch , widely known as the face of Wall Street , live from New York. What unfolds is not a conversation about markets or forecasts, but about how money shapes our inner world . Together, they explore how ou...

The Future Is HOW with Ivy Ross How Art Regulates the Brain When the World Feels Overwhelming | Ivy Ross In this episode, Frederik Pferdt sits down with Ivy Ross , Vice President of Design for Hardware Products at Google and co-author of Your Brain on Art , for a quiet, deeply human conversation about art, design, neuroscience, and what it really takes to build a future that still feels alive. Whi...

As 2025 comes to a close, it’s time to pause and look back. Not to summarize the year, but to harvest what truly mattered. This was a year full of futures. Full of encounters with people who don’t wait for what’s next, but actively practice it. We are living in a moment where the future often feels unclear, even heavy. And that’s why the real question is no longer what will happen next , but how d...

Today on The Future is How, Frederik's guest is Guy Kawasaki. In 1983, when there was no such thing as evangelism in businesses and corporations, he popularized it, while working with the Macintosh Division of Apple. He set standards beyond Apple. Today, Guy is the Chief Evangelist of Canva, the online graphics-design company from Australia. Guy is also the author of fifteen books, New York Times...

Today on The Future is How , Frederik's guests are Tessa Forshaw and Rich Braden – authors of Innovation-ish: How Anyone can Create Breakthrough Solutions to Real Problems in the Real World Rich Braden is the founder and CEO of the San Francisco-based consulting firm, People Rocket . For the past 15 years he has been a design educator at universities around the world including Stanford University...

Today on The Future is HOW , Frederik sits down with Sam Conniff – bestselling author of Be More Pirate , social entrepreneur, and creator of Uncertainty Experts , the world’s first science-based immersive program designed to help people navigate change with courage and creativity. In this conversation, Frederik and Sam explore what it truly means to live and lead in uncertain times. They uncover...

The Future Is HOW with Suzy Welch. Suzy is a bestselling author, journalist, and educator — and one of the most authentic voices when it comes to leadership and purpose today. You may know her from Harvard Business Review , NBC’s Today Show , or through one of her bestselling books, including her latest, Becoming You . Most people spend their lives searching for their purpose. But as Dr. Frederik...

What if every meal could shape the future? In this episode of The Future Is HOW , I sit down with Michelin-starred chef Dalad Kambhu — a culinary trailblazer who has redefined Thai cuisine in Berlin. Born in Texas, raised in Bangkok, and shaped by New York’s creative energy, Dalad’s journey shows us that food is never just food. It’s imagination. It’s connection. It’s gratitude. Together, we explo...

What happens when AI meets human creativity? In this episode, Frederik sits down with Jeremy Utley —adjunct professor at Stanford University, co-author of Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters , Thinkers50 Top Innovation Leader, host of Paint & Pipette: The Art & Science of Innovation , and co-host of Beyond the Prompt . Jeremy has taught nearly a million students worldwide, advi...

Today on the show: Tyler Winick, is an explorer of self, a facilitator of deep inner work, and the creative force behind Tahüm , where his music guides people into presence and discovery. He’s also the co-creator of Garden of True Self , a framework for reconnecting to our truth and protecting our energy. As an artist and musician, he has just recently, hit his first million streams. In this episo...

Today in The Future Is How: Frederik's Summer Best-of Special: "Growing Your Future" Welcome to a very special summer edition of The Future is How. Frederik wants to take you on a walk through a different kind of garden. This garden has rich soil made of powerful questions, strong trellises of trust, flowing channels of communication, and restorative greenhouses of rest. But it's also alive with t...

Today in The Future Is How: Francesco Ciccolella. His illustrations don’t just decorate the page– they challenge how we see the world. Francesco is a Vienna-based artist, illustrator, and designer whose work has appeared in The New York Times , The Guardian , The New Yorker , MIT Technology Review , and on the covers of books and ideas that have shaped our thinking. He also brought Frederik's  ide...

In this episode, we explore how trust shapes the future — in parenting, education, and leadership. Esther Wojcicki is known as "The godmother of Silicon Valley", a legendary educator, journalist, and author of How to Raise Successful People . She has taught thousands of students, raised three remarkable daughters (a CEO, a doctor, and a professor), and sparked a global movement with her TRICK phil...

In today’s episode of The Future is How, it's all about growth, from plants to the inner self. And we have a more than special guest: Angela Pferdt. Coming from a background in finance, today she is a Healing Artist, a Reiki Master, a Master Gardener, and she is Frederik's wife, in Frederik's words: one of his greatest teachers. Frederik and Angela spent decades together, building a home and raisi...

In today’s episode of The Future is How, questions take center stage. Questions shape our futures much more than we believe in everyday life. Marc Champagne, author of “Personal Socrates” and podcast host of “Behind the Human” is a pioneer in mental fitness, who explores the practices of brilliant thinkers, visionaries, and high-impact performers. He trained thousands of professionals to gain clar...