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 handed down between people. It's also the mechanism I've watched disappear from knowledge work — not from the trades, which are fine, but from marketing, strategy, writing, and a dozen fields next door.

Three stories from my career, none of them flattering. And one admission I've been avoiding.

I don't need a human apprentice anymore. I have an AI one. It doesn't need years. It just needs a better prompt.

CHAPTERS

• 0:00 The Phone on the Kitchen Wall
• 3:21 Apprentice, Journeyman, Master
• 5:48 "Time Isn't the Issue"
• 12:24 The Vice Presidents on the Call
• 14:27 What the Data Actually Shows
• 16:09 Codified vs. Tacit Knowledge
• 17:55 The Boss Who Listened
• 20:31 "No, Not That"
• 22:49 Sawing Off the Ladder
• 24:35 No Fix, But Naming It
• 25:33 One Person, Twice
• 27:01 The Moat
• 27:55 Next Time
• 28:22 Get in Touch

RESEARCH REFERENCED

• "Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence" — Brynjolfsson, Chandar & Chen, Stanford Digital Economy Lab, November 2025 https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/publications/canaries-in-the-coal-mine/
• The 2026 AI Index Report — Stanford HAI (labour data in the Economy chapter, pp. 219–224) https://hai.stanford.edu/assets/files/ai_index_report_2026.pdf
• "The AI Apprenticeship Crisis: Why IBM Is Tripling Entry-Level Hiring" — Soren Kaplan, Inc. https://www.inc.com/soren-kaplan/the-ai-apprenticeship-crisis-why-ibm-is-tripling-entry-level-hiring/91366413
• The tacit/codified knowledge distinction comes from philosopher Michael Polanyi, "Personal Knowledge" (1958).

GET IN TOUCH

I read everything that comes in.

https://samuelkirk.com | https://linkedin.com/in/samkirk

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 about what happened in that conversation. What landed, what didn't, and the moment I broke the script — and why I think that was the methodology working, not breaking.

It's also about the bigger thing the session surfaced: that the identity question underneath all of this — who are you, separate from what you do — isn't something AI is creating. It's something AI is making impossible to keep avoiding.

CONNECT

Website: https://samuelkirk.com

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/samkirk

If something in this episode hit home — or if past episodes have stayed with you — I'd love to hear from you. What's the version of this question showing up in your life right now? What concerns you most as the world keeps changing this fast?

MUSIC

Licensed through Soundstripe. Code: QDPUHMRUPMFWOICI

#TheLastLiftOperator #FutureOfWork #AIDisruption #MarketingPodcast #Podcast

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 heart. We'll keep you updated.

What followed was almost two weeks of hospital visits, family logistics, and being present for the people who needed him — while the business he's trying to build sat untouched.

This episode is about what it costs to show up. Not the inspirational version of that idea — but the real one. The version where you come home exhausted, behind on your timeline, scared about your financial runway, and wondering if you're actually cut out for any of this.

It's also about a simple exercise that cracked something open: name ten things you want. No categories, no time horizon, no rules. And what Sam found when he looked at his list — that four of the ten weren't business goals at all, but something more foundational — changed how he understood what the last two weeks had actually been.

Topics in this episode:

• Preparing your kids for the possibility of loss
• The pull between being present for family and building something of your own
• What "performative grinding" actually feels like from the inside
• The difference between the six things you want and the four things you need
• What it means to be one or two steps ahead — not miles ahead — of the people you're trying to help

If any of this lands for you — if you're navigating something similar, or you just want to connect with a real human who's been living this — I'd love to hear from you. Reach out at samuelkirk.com or find me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/samkirk.

The staff at Langley Memorial Hospital took incredible care of my dad during this episode. If you're looking for a place to put some good into the world, consider supporting the Langley Community Health & Hospital Foundation: lchhfoundation.com/donate

The Last Lift Operator publishes every two weeks wherever you listen to podcasts.

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