The Last Lift Operator

I handed my son a phone and watched him press the screen flat against the side of his head. He didn't know where the speaker was. He never said hello. And when the call ended — with his grandparents, still talking — he hit the red button and walked away. Nobody decided not to teach him. We just never did the thing in front of him enough times for it to become his. That's how almost everything gets...

I had my first real session with someone using the methodology I've been developing. I went in with a question I'd been carrying for months. I came out understanding that the question had been in his life for years before I walked in — and that the work isn't about asking better questions. It's about being honest enough that the person across from you has room to be honest back. This episode is ab...

In this episode of The Last Lift Operator, Sam was supposed to be moving forward — testing conversations, building the practice he's been developing, making progress on the venture he's been quietly laying the groundwork for. Instead, minutes before leaving for a long-awaited trip with his two sons to visit their grandfather, a text message arrived: FYI, dad at ER. Angina. Short of breath. Racing...

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...

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 Operato r, 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 hol...

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 dro...

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...