Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
My problem: I’ve never hosted an advice podcast before. Need to know how to host a sports podcast or daily news show? I’m your guy. But this time, I needed some sage wisdom from some of the best advice podcasters I know, Ian Chillag and Mike Danforth, the veteran hosts of NPR’s How to Do Everything.
Their advice is not just to give the listener the most efficient answer—the goal is to leave them with a “repeatable fact” that they can dazzle their friends with when they talk about the episode later.
They also discuss how the host chooses which listener questions to tackle. Sometimes the appeal is simply that a question sounds fun (emigrating as a throuple, anyone?) or maybe the person asking it seems interesting. But they give me the advice to look for problems that invite a “perpendicular” solution that results in better stories. In other words, an unexpected approach rather than the obvious one, because you can get the answer with a search engine or AI.
Chillag and Danforth also reminisce about some of the best guests they had on How to Do Everything. Patrick Stewart was a recurring delight. Kevin Bacon once shared that he got over motion sickness by staring at the back of Tom Hanks’ head (a solution they themselves admit may not scale). And then there was the time they asked Kenny G to perform an anti-romantic saxophone piece.
mikepesca.substack.com/p/how-to-host-advice-podcast-mike-pesca-how-to-show?utm_source=youtube
My problem: I’ve never hosted an advice podcast before. Need to know how to host a sports podcast or daily news show? I’m your guy. But this time, I needed some sage wisdom from some of the best advice podcasters I know, Ian Chillag and Mike Danforth, the veteran hosts of NPR’s How to Do Everything.
Their advice is not just to give the listener the most efficient answer—the goal is to leave them with a “repeatable fact” that they can dazzle their friends with when they talk about the episode later.
They also discuss how the host chooses which listener questions to tackle. Sometimes the appeal is simply that a question sounds fun (emigrating as a throuple, anyone?) or maybe the person asking it seems interesting. But they give me the advice to look for problems that invite a “perpendicular” solution that results in better stories. In other words, an unexpected approach rather than the obvious one, because you can get the answer with a search engine or AI.
Chillag and Danforth also reminisce about some of the best guests they had on How to Do Everything. Patrick Stewart was a recurring delight. Kevin Bacon once shared that he got over motion sickness by staring at the back of Tom Hanks’ head (a solution they themselves admit may not scale). And then there was the time they asked Kenny G to perform an anti-romantic saxophone piece.
mikepesca.substack.com/p/how-to-host-advice-podcast-mike-pesca-how-to-show?utm_source=youtube
