Kara Swisher joins Carl for a wide-ranging conversation about money and meaning - from her early experiences with money to observing the habits of influential billionaires up close. 

From Carl: 

“You’re so poor, that all you have is money.”

This is an actual statement that Kara made to a super wealthy entrepreneur that she was talking to, and it’s safe to say…he didn’t like hearing it.

In this episode of 50 Fires, Kara goes on to explain that people with money often think that they’re interesting because they have money, but she has met enough billionaires to know that having money can often overtake the inner lives of people, making them incredibly un-interesting!

What became immediately evident in my conversation with Kara, is that while she herself has made a good amount of money as a media figure and journalist who has interviewed many of the most influential figures in the tech industry (like Steve Jobs, Mark Zucherberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos, just to name a few) she has a remarkably clear sense of what enough means for her, and she is unapologetically aligning her use of time, energy, and attention with what she values, perhaps in spite of her interactions with some of the folks she has covered and gotten to know over the course of her career.

Her clarity about following through on her own ideas, having control over those ideas, and then using her money to make an impact on the things that matter to her most has given her a deep sense of direction, allowing her to say “no” to things that don’t matter to her, while saying an emphatic “hell yes” to the stuff that does.

Imagine what it would be like if you could help your clients align their use of time, energy, and attention to focus on what really matters to them? What actions would they take as a result? Share this episode with them, and ask them to consider one simple question as they listen:

• What would a complete stranger find interesting about you if you had no money at all?