Episodes

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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 we know about luck - it's not a gift, it's a practice. We explore how to build your inner ship, rec...

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 along Lake Zurich at sunrise, listening to birds instead of podcasts, and why she once spent an entire...

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 connection between smell and memory, why no scent ever represents just one thing, and how fragrance can...

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 at. A deeply personal and human conversation about risk, reinvention, money, meaning, and why the fu...

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 our relationship with money influences fear, freedom, trust, happiness, and the choices we make about our ...

🎧 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. While most conversations about the future focus on speed, technology, and efficiency, this one moves ...

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 do we create something better, starting now. In this special Best Of episode of The Future Is HOW, ...

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 and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. He is a keynote speaker and host of the Remarkable People Podca...

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 and Harvard University. Tessa Forshaw is a cognitive scientist, senior researcher, and co-founder of ...

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 how breaking rules can be an act of purpose, why discomfort is the birthplace of creativity, and how r...

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 G. Pferdt often says, “What if purpose isn’t something you find — but something you feel, every day?”...

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 explore how cooking can become a classroom for empathy, how rituals around the table can transform relat...

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, advises CEOs and startup founders, and is currently researching how individuals and organizations can accelerate the...

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 episode, we explore the profound impact of music as a universal language that transcends borders and cultu...

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 the buzz of cross-pollinating bees, nourished by both sunshine and rain, enriched by compost that tr...

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 ideas to life , through incredible sketches, including the one-line illustrations in Frederik's book What’s ...

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 philosophy: Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, and Kindness. “Kids are not luggage — they are...

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 raising three children. “Home is where I grow”, says Angela. This time The Future is How comes straight f...