THE FUTURE IS HOW
Welcome to The Future Is How, a podcast that empowers you to actively shape your future with practical insights and inspiration. Hosted by Dr. Frederik G. Pferdt, former Chief Innovation Evangelist at Google, it explores how to build a future-ready mindstate through engaging conversations with experts in sleep, nutrition, mindfulness, and more. Move beyond predictions—discover how to turn anxiety about the future into excitement and possibility, starting with your mindstate. Tune in and take control of your tomorrow.
Recent Episodes
12
June 26, 2026
From Doing to Being | Ruchika Sikri on Mindfulness, Connection & Tech That's Good for Humans
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, with Dr. Vivek Murthy joining as a partner - and the author of Brain Fitness Blueprint, which conne
11
June 12, 2026
Loved, But Not Feeling It | Sonja Lyubomirsky on Connection, Vulnerability & What Makes Us Happy
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 her research says about control and the future, and her own daily practice of presence and radi
10
May 29, 2026
The Mind on Fire | OpenAI's Brice Challamel on Stewardship, Questions & What AI Asks of Us
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, why he has actually cried during AI conversations - and what makes us irreplaceably human. Chapters
9
May 16, 2026
What If Everything Works Out? How to Turn Up your Inside Volume | Dushka Zapata + Dan Roam
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 clearly is actually a form of anxiety, why the fear of drawing is really the fear of your own future, an
8
May 1, 2026
How Connection Becomes Your Superpower | Laura Jones (CMO Instacart)
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 one of the most joyful Super Bowl ads of the year. We talk about the power of "How might we" and "Yes
7
April 16, 2026
Why Fulfillment Is a Dead End - and What to Design Instead | Bill Burnett
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 full of meaning - not just success. We talk about wonder, community, flow, and why the most mea
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