What happens when the thing you traded money for — purpose, meaning, mission — turns out to be just as fragile as the money itself?

In this episode, Sam Kirk traces the full arc: a childhood bankruptcy, a vow to never be poor again, years of performing toughness in rooms full of people doing the same thing, and then — almost by accident — a job that changed everything. He went to China. He held a baby with a heart defect. He wrote a terrible fundraising letter that raised the money anyway. And for the first time in his working life, he understood what it meant to be exactly where he was supposed to be.

But here's the problem with making meaning your currency: it's external. It lives in the organizations you work for, the causes you serve, the roles you hold. And when those things change — when AI accelerates the disruption, when the roles disappear, when the industry quietly starts preferring 31-year-olds with AI subscriptions over 51-year-olds with thirty years of hard-won expertise — you don't just lose income. You lose the thing you traded income for.

This is the episode about what that actually feels like. And what it's going to take to find something that's yours before the job starts and still yours after it ends.

Topics covered:

• The feeling of being untethered — what it actually is and why this time is different
• The "we" problem: why Sam says it by hour two and what that reveals
• A childhood bankruptcy, a conscious vow, and the version of success that didn't fit
• East coast ad agencies, strip mining, and performing toughness at people performing it back
• International China Concern: the job that wasn't a noble leap of faith — and became a nine-year home
• The baby with the heart defect who is now a teenager in America — and the terrible appeal letter that worked anyway
• Why meaning is just as fragile as money when it lives outside you
• Being 51 in an industry that prefers 31 — and the quiet death of the apprenticeship model
• The work underneath all the other work

Chapters:

00:00 Untethered

00:43 The Cycle

01:32 Intro

01:39 By Hour Two

03:12 The Vow

07:53 The Touchstone

12:04 The Trade

13:36 Where Does Your Worth Come From?

14:27 The Work Underneath the Work

17:21 Bringing It Back Home

18:30 Preview of Next Episode

18:46 People Worth Thanking

This is Episode 4 of The Last Lift Operator — a podcast about navigating AI disruption in marketing and communications, honestly and in real time.

🌐 samuelkirk.com

💼 linkedin.com/in/samkirk

New episodes every two weeks.

What happens when the thing you've built your career on has always been in service of someone else's vision — and suddenly you're on your own?

In Episode 3 of The Last Lift Operator, Sam Kirk explores what it means to be an Enneagram Nine — the Diplomat — in the middle of professional and personal upheaval. He unpacks the Nine/Three/Six triangle, the difference between healthy integration and hollow performance, and the specific cost of spending two years gripping tighter instead of being honest about where he actually was.

This isn't a personality framework episode. It's about learning to stop representing someone else's country — and starting to plant your own flag.

The Last Lift Operator is a podcast about navigating AI disruption in marketing, out loud and in real time. New episodes every two weeks.

Find out more about Sam and The Last Lift Operator on the show website: samuelkirk.com

I went to theatre school. That's not something I lead with professionally — but it's where this episode starts.

Because the thread from music to theatre to marketing to nonprofits is the same thread I'm pulling on right now, trying to figure out what comes next. And when I ran into two former colleagues recently — both copywriters, both recently laid off, both trying to build something new — I drove home with a thought I'm not proud of. And a fear I couldn't shake.

This episode is about a dollar a word, thirty dollars a month, and what happened to the people in between. It's about my coach pushing back on me hard. And it's about what I'm slowly learning — that every regret I have traces back to fear. And every bold choice I've never regretted.

The Last Lift Operator is hosted by Sam Kirk. New episodes every two weeks.

Connect with Sam: linkedin.com/in/samkirk

The Last Lift Operator | EP 1: The Doors Opened By Themselves

I spent 25 years in marketing. Writer. Designer. Strategist. Account director. I was good at it. Known for being good at it.

And then AI arrived. And a significant portion of what I'd spent my career becoming good at got commodified almost overnight.

This isn't a show about how AI is going to destroy everything. I use these tools every single day — including to build this podcast. But I recently found myself unemployed. In my early fifties. In an industry I've given everything to.

And I keep coming back to one image: the lift operator. The only job economists can point to that automation truly, completely eliminated.

Not restructured. Eliminated.

I think about those people a lot lately. Because I think I'm one of them. Or I'm trying very hard not to be.

This show is me figuring that out. Out loud. In public.

You're welcome to come along. New episodes every two weeks.

Connect with Sam: https://linkedin.com/in/samkirk