NPR’s ‘Life Kit’ Is There For Those Who Need A Hand In Figuring Life Out

There’s no one guide book for life, and they certainly don’t teach you everything you need to know in school on how to manage a relationship and your finances. That’s one of the reasons why NPR created their show Life Kit with the tagline “tools to help you get it together”. The hosts walk the listener through difficult circumstances that may happen in their lives and talk to experts to get practical answers on what to do about them. It’s a fast moving show that’s fun, engaging, and above all – helpful.

At a recent podcast conference called On Air Fest, Life Kit did a live episode I got to sit in on and had the change to speak with the host Marielle Segarra, and contributing reporter TK Dutes about the show, and what I had just watched.

There was a moment in the show where Marielle and her guest went into roleplaying mode to walk out the specifics of speaking with someone about a difficult issue. Marielle told me that the improvisational section of the live taping I watched was not scripted and that it’s a regular part of the show. For instance in a recent episode Marielle played the part of a billing officer and the guest played a patient calling to negotiate. The series is about helping others, which in essence, is the synthesis of what NPR is supposed to be about.

Recent episodes touch on topics like “listening to your boss complain”, “how to prepare for an earthquake”, and “how to build a cold weather outfit.”

What attracts you to this kind of work?

Marielle Segarra: It’s service journalism, and one of the reasons I got into journalism was to give people the information they need to make decisions and to be a reliable source of information. A lot of places people turn to for help they dont know if the research and the fact checking has been done, but you know you can trust us to talk to experts and bring info rooted in what the experts say and not just whatever we feel. I love that I get to talk about a wide range of things like how to connect with your ancestors or how to talk to a partner about STIs. A lot of the show is giving people language that can be helpful to them like talking to a doctor about risks and how to have conversations about these things. We make it actionable for people

TK Dutes: That’s part of it for me, the step by step of it all meaning we cover literally any topic ever. If theres a rolodex in the field, then Life Kit would be filled with different topics. The generational wealth episode resonates strongly for me and I hope it helped people. I love helping people and I cant mind my business. I love telling people what to do.

What are some of your favorite episodes?

Marielle: I started in september and we did a bunch about family that I love about the nuts and bolts of researching a family tree, about traditions and how to make your own and make new ones and what to do when old ones dont fit anymore. Those are fun to do especially around the holidays and it’s on people’s minds. How to make a better to do list and helping people with structures in their lives to do what they want to do is the root value of whatever is on my list.

When I’m picking topics I look at value to the listener that helps people figure it out. Should I retile my kitchen for instance? That’s just an example. We have video podcasts coming too.

How do you pick the topics?

TK: They empower me to pitch and sometimes they pitch me and I say yes or no.

Marielle – We have monthly pitch meetings and have a balance of things to solve with 3 episodes a week. Health, finance, and romance would be a good balance for us. We try to spread it out because our listeners are there for a buffet and we don’t want them to think it’s just about one thing. A listener survey revealed they are into finance and sustainability and we listen to our audience.

Who is your target audience?

Marielle: We have a younger audience so we try to keep that in mind with topics we choose. The episodes are pretty broad but we do have a general age in mind.

TK: We have crossover commentary when episodes go to another show like All Things Considered. I love when I get a message that someone likes what we did from a proper grown up.

My first piece was about career change to show younger people that there’s many options. They realize life is short, but they can change their mind about things.

Marielle: Sometimes you learn from someone younger than you to take risks

TK: Life Kit is an open sandbox

How do you approach topics you may not be familiar with?

TK: I let the expert be the expert and I let my curiosity lead and put myself in the position of the listener. A parent is an expert on their child and a doctor is an expert on the body, so we have two different conversations and we try to join them in the middle through edits.

Marielle: When it’s something you can relate to, its a different interview and your questions can be informed by what you experienced like with the medical billing episode. I could relate to that.

Do you ever have theme series like multi-part?

Marielle: We have a lot of topics we go back to, and underneath we might have parenting, pregnancy, and mental health. We also do things on cooking and meal prep like one pan dinners. If you think about “how do I feed myself?”, we present options. The YouTube series is the newest thing and all episodes are personal finance or health related.

How do they match?

Marielle: We haven’t decided yet on how to merge them or if we do that at all. Q and A and roleplay work well for video, but do we make the podcast this portion? It’s still in process.

Do you have episodes that are more intermediate skill set? Like how to make a podcast?

Marielle: We’re still a young show and we’re starting to come back to lets go back past the 101 version and do the 201 version. We want to do more of that.

How did podcasting or journalism become a passion and how does that fit in withyou?

Marielle: I always wanted to be a writer and would pretend I was hosting a show in my room. I always liked the idea and once I got more sophisticated I wanted to give people the information they needed and to help people make decisions in their lives.

What do you find the most challenging?

Marielle: There’s a lot of pressure and you dont want to bore anyone and you want to be engaging. Oh, they want me to talk? I have to do this? Weird?

New episodes launch 3 times a week and can be listened to anywhere you get your podcasts.