The Inner Wealth Podcast
Mike Kitko is the Founder and Creative Director of Inner Wealth Global, a personal and professional development company that helps business owners create aligned wealth, success, freedom, and deep fulfillment—without sacrificing themselves in the process.
As an author, speaker, podcaster, and coach Mike guides visionaries and impact-driven entrepreneurs to align their inner world with the life and business they are truly meant to live and create. His work helps you master your mind, energy, and emotions while building intense personal power so that wealth and opportunity flow effortlessly.
Through coaching, training, and transformational content, Inner Wealth Global helps business owners break free from unnecessary struggle, trust their path, and create a life deeply aligned with their soul.
The Inner Wealth Podcast
Ep171. Beyond Goals: Creating a Vision for a Life You'll Love.
In this episode, Mike Kitko dives into the transformative power of creating a life vision versus merely setting goals. With the end of the year approaching, many people are entering goal-setting season, but Mike challenges listeners to go deeper. He explains how a vision provides a sense of direction and purpose that goes beyond a checklist of achievements. By aligning with a clear vision, we can experience profound changes in both our internal and external lives. Mike discusses the three pillars—clarity, certainty, and commitment—that bring a vision to life, sharing insights from his own life transformation and inviting listeners to embrace a life by design.
Key Takeaways:
- A Vision is a Compass
- A vision guides your life beyond temporary goals, shaping who you want to be and how you want to feel. It’s a true north for both your inner and outer world.
- Shift from Survival Mode to Creation Mode
- Most people live in survival mode, driven by insecurities and fears. Moving into creation mode requires a clear vision, freeing you from reacting to life’s circumstances and enabling intentional creation.
- Clarity, Certainty, and Commitment: The Three C’s of Creation
- Clarity about your vision sets a foundation. Certainty involves releasing doubt, while Commitment is about inspired, patient action. Together, they bring your vision to life.
- Install Your Vision Through Embodiment
- Visioning goes beyond thinking—it’s about embodying. Mike discusses tools like meditation to integrate your vision into your mindset, beliefs, and emotions.
- Beyond Goals: Avoiding Regrets
- A vision aligns you with a life true to yourself, reducing regret. It helps you live authentically, so you can look back with fulfillment, not missed opportunities.
Notable Quotes:
- “A vision is more than a list of goals—it’s your soul’s compass, directing you toward the life you truly want.”
- “Most people live in survival mode, reacting to what they don’t want. A vision lets you step into creation mode and build a life you do want.”
- “Life becomes an ally when you get clear about your desires. Clarity opens doors, and certainty closes them behind you.”
- “We are powerful creators, and with clarity, certainty, and commitment, we can design a life that feels authentic and fulfilling.”
- “When you embody your vision, you begin to live it. Don’t settle for a list of goals—create a life by design.”
Music Credit: "What's Left of Me" by Wes Hoffman & Friends
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Do you ever wake up feeling like there's something missing in your life? Do you ever feel the need to escape your business? Are you running your life or is your life running you? I'm Mike Kitko and I'll help you design and create a life so authentic and aligned with who you really are that you'll get excited just to wake up. I'll help you create real wealth, success and freedom from the inside out. Welcome to the Inner Wealth Podcast, where we learn and choose to live inspired each and every day.
Speaker 1:Well, it's that time of year again. This episode will be published on November 7th, 2024. And it's that time of year again. It's goal setting season and this is a it's. It's fun to watch, and I've been on this planet for 52 years and I've been in the I would say the, the I don't know the business space or you know the whatever being in business mode or being part of businesses since, you know, shoot, since I was in my twenties, and it, it, this, this season fascinates me. It, it really does, because this is when you know there's people that that say they're really goal-driven and and there's there's people who, there's people that utilize goals, that don't love utilizing goals, but they utilize goals because they think they have to utilize goals and like if you don't have a goal, then you're not really living. And I think there's you know there's a lot of I don't know self-rejection in that and there's a lot of shame. But it is goal setting season and if you're anything like me, you don't enjoy setting goals. Goals. If you're anything like me, goals aren't the reason that we get motivated. For me, looking at my goals, for me, looking at my goals, and I'm defining goals as in a list of outcomes that I want to see happen, I guess, in the next year or in the next time, I'm not really goal-oriented as much as other people are. There are people who are goal-oriented If you are, get after it and stay after it, and I applaud people and I champion and I cheerlead people that are goal oriented. But I'm just not.
Speaker 1:When I'm working with people in the Interwealth Mastermind or when I'm working with people in the interwealth community or one-on-one clients or even, you know, when I'm doing workshops, I I help them understand the power of shifting from having goals to having a vision for their life, and I've had a vision for my life for the last eight years, and what having a vision does is. It's going to help you understand the complete quality of life that you're looking to experience and, instead of just having a bullet point list of targets, it's going to give you this representation of what you want your overall life to look like, how you want to shape your overall life. It's almost like a due north for your life, and you're giving life and God, or source or the universe whatever you want to call it the universe, whatever you want to call it you're giving our creator the target that you're after, and it's not just about goals. Have you ever set goals, achieved goals and then just set another new set and it really didn't influence the way that you felt in the world? Now, if you've listened to enough of these episodes, you heard me say over and over that the quality of your life is in your body, not in your bank account. And having a vision, and inside of a vision is very much about the quality of your inner environment and the quality of your external environment, but the quality of your life is in your body. Now I'm going to read my. I'm going to read my vision in a little bit, but I want to make sure we understand that there is so much more to life than just accomplishing goals.
Speaker 1:One of the books that I podcast I had episodes about this book on this podcast and it's a book by a gal named Bronnie Ware and it's titled the Top Five Regrets of the Dying. And regret number one is I wish I would have lived a life true to myself instead of the life that other people want for me. And another one of the top five regrets is I wish I wouldn't have worked so much, I wish I would have stayed more connected with my friends, I wish I would have expressed my emotions more and, lastly, I wish I would have allowed myself to be happier. Those are the top five regrets of the dying, and a vision helps us understand exactly what we're after, so that when you get to your deathbed you don't experience a state of regret when done with your entire soul. A vision sets you up for a successful last exhale without regret. That when you create a vision, when you step into that vision, when you embody that vision, it helps you feel more worthy and valuable and authentic and powerful and purposeful. It's not just about goals and achieving goals. It's about changing the quality of your inner state and changing the quality of your external environment, but your overall quality of life is in your body and it's your state of consciousness. So a vision is going to help you understand exactly what your soul is after, not just from a goal basis. There are some goals in a vision, but the vision isn't a goal, it's a target and it's a due north that almost acts as a compass that you get to check in with to understand exactly what you want in this world.
Speaker 1:I'm going to read mine. So it's a one-page and it's a one-page document. There are five paragraphs. Okay, there are five paragraphs. The first paragraph is about it's a summary, it's a snapshot of what the entire document's about, okay. The second is about health. The third is about wealth. The fourth is about impact and the fifth is about relationship. Now I'm gonna read these and these are really, really powerful for me and sometimes I get emotional when I read these and I read this every day to reconnect with what am I actually creating in this lifetime. So I'm going to start reading.
Speaker 1:I create a life of incredible health and fitness, financial freedom, time freedom, positive impact, love and intimacy, and travel and exploration, which excites me to wake up to each day. My life is significant and moves the needle on the amount of joy and love in the world. Because of my natural gifts and talents, my work in the world is meaningful and my life is fulfilling. That feels really, really good to connect with. Can you start to see what a vision, what a real vision, does for you? It starts to connect you. It helps you understand what is the overall life you want to live, not just what am I trying to accomplish and achieve For health? I live a moderate lifestyle in everything I do and I'm stress-free. I am fit, lean and healthy. I choose a fitness routine which is inspired and enjoyable. Overall well-being and happiness are central themes of my life. I live a life of internal and external freedom and happiness. I jump out of bed each morning with massive energy to move the needle in the world. I have control over my time and I have time margin in my life. That is what I want in my health and that's how I want to feel every day when I get out of bed Wealth.
Speaker 1:My net worth is 10 million and my income is 500,000 from business activity. Interwealth sales are $1 million annually and I have a small team to support my life and mission. I have complete financial freedom to travel as I desire and experience the world because of the powerful impact I make through my work. I use my overflowing abundance to invest in others who are making a positive impact on the world through their own mission and passion. I am wealthy and give generously to make the world a better place. So there are some goals in there, there are some numbers, there are some targets, but overall there's also about how I want to experience that wealth and how I want to feel in that wealth and how I want to feel with that wealth and what I want to do with that wealth Impact.
Speaker 1:I am useful and impactful. That is what I wake up every day to do to feel useful and impactful. I'm useful and impactful and I help people fall in love with themselves and their life. I help them feel significant and powerful and together we create the life of their dreams. I have 25 members in the Inner Wealth Mastermind and 100 members in the Inner Wealth community. I hold six in-person and virtual coaching programs per year to train and teach others outside of my mastermind and community. My business builds from the power of my social media content, my books, podcasts from the speaking stage and referrals because of the positive impact I make in the lives of others. I want to make a massive impact. I love simplicity and a simple life, but I love simplicity and a simple life with an ever-growing impact in this world Relationships.
Speaker 1:Angie and I have Angie is my wife. Angie and I have an amazing, empowering, authentic and accepting relationship. We are bonded by freedom and inspiration, friendship and love. We help each other be the best we can be individually and in our relationship. We are bonded by freedom and inspiration, friendship and love. We help each other be the best we can be individually and in our relationship. We support and encourage each other to create our authentic visions. We are the model for an exponential bond. Together, we create a clean, safe and loving home for our daughters, our pets and ourselves. Everyone we encounter feels the power of our love and feeds off of it. Our family and closest allies thrive because of the lives we've built. We travel multiple times monthly, with business merged with leisure, and travel internationally yearly to explore new countries outside of the United States.
Speaker 1:Guys, gals, that is a vision and instead of just having goals to achieve or specific outcomes to materialize, when we move beyond just bullet points and we describe and get clear about the life that we want to live. You'd be surprised how much life becomes an ally and stops feeling like an adversary, because you're going to start to see, and when you connect with this, you are going to start to see signs and signals and synchronicities of how the universe is and how life is supporting you to create that life that you've already designed. Now, if you really look at this world, most people are waking up every day to avoid what they don't want. Every day, most people I'd put it over 95% most people are waking up because they are super hyper clear on what they don't want in this world and they are waking up every day to avoid what they don't want. In a lot of cases, all they're doing is reacting to circumstances and they're not guiding or influencing or directing their life. They are allowing life to direct them because they don't have a due north. They are waking up in survival mode to avoid what they don't want, and that could be bankruptcy, it could be being unemployed, it could be being alone. Whatever, they're waking up to avoid something instead of waking up to create something, and I call this survival mode.
Speaker 1:Survival mode is based on insecurity, inadequacy and insignificance, when you feel like you're just trying not to lose something, whether it be money or a relationship, when you feel inadequate, when you're trying to prove yourself and you're trying to feel better about yourself, or insignificant, where you're trying to matter in this world. You feel like you don't matter and you're trying to matter. If you're living your life based on insecurity, inadequacy and insignificance, you are in survival mode, and we can make the shift out of survival mode into creation mode. But creation mode requires clarity. In order to create, you must have a point of creation, you must have a target. You must know as clearly as most people know what they don't want. You must know what you do want, and only when you have a frame of reference, when you have a target, only when you have the clarity that I just read, only then can you create the life you desire, instead of running away from the life that you don't desire.
Speaker 1:For 43 years, I woke up every day and I went to a place I didn't want to go to do things I didn't want to do, to work with people I didn't want to work with. Do things I didn't want to do, to work with people I didn't want to work with. And I woke up when I didn't want to wake up, and I did that all out of insecurity, inadequacy, insignificance. I hadn't taken time to understand what I wanted from life. I allowed life to dictate what I was going to do was going to do. It was almost like I put my fate in the hands of others and I just I felt like a flag that was just waving in the wind and life was beating me around a lot. And the first order of business was for me to get hyper, hyper clear that I want an empty calendar, that I want no to-do list, that I want time, freedom and financial freedom, that I want to build a business that reflects who I am, my soul's purpose, my mission, that's impactful and that's useful and that makes a difference a positive, and that makes a difference, a positive, massive, positive difference in this world. And I wanted the world to be better because I existed and I didn't want to have to prove myself and I didn't want to build my business from a place of insecurity, inadequacy and insignificance. I wanted to build it only from inspiration and I wanted to love waking up each and every day.
Speaker 1:When I wrote my first vision, my marriage was not in good shape. Angie and I did not have a very loving relationship. We loved each other, but we didn't have a very loving relationship. We weren't friends, we were just coexisting in a relationship. And by getting clear about the marriage that I want instead of accepting what I had, that's when I got an opportunity to step into something completely different. When I wrote this, I was still almost 300 pounds and it felt like a lie. When I put on paper, I am lean and fit. And if you pay attention, if you paid attention when I read that vision, there are no signs of what I don't want, because that's survival mode. So we don't include anything about what we don't want. But it's also written in the present active tense that I already have it and there's some things in that vision that I already have and there's some things that are on their way. You can't tell the difference Now.
Speaker 1:If you were to do this exercise, the life that is perfect for you is going to sound a lot different than that life. If you noticed, there's a lot of feelings, there's a lot of emotions in that vision, because the quality, your quality of life is in your body. So it's getting clear about what do you want to feel every day, not just. What do you want to accomplish every day? What do you want to feel every day? Do you want to feel loving? Do you want to feel loved? Do you want to feel admired? Do you want to feel valuable? Do you want to feel useful? Do you want to feel impactful, admired? Do you want to feel valuable? Do you want to feel useful? Do you want to feel impactful? Do you want to feel accepted, embraced? Do you want to feel significant? You want to feel all these things. So include them in your vision, because this is your target. This is you're giving life. You're giving universe like a place for your energy to flow, so that you can live life by design. And that's exactly what this is life by design.
Speaker 1:I've moved from being living a life based on being a victim to a life by design, and when we get clear about the life we want, we can create it, and you'll be surprised how much help you get from God, life, universe when you get really, really clear about what you want. Now listen, as I do this work with clients, I've built a couple programs around this, around this, and if you go to my website, wwwinnerwealthglobalcom, you'll see on the main page under the free product section. It's the Choose your Destiny video course and inside of this course it talks about the creation process, and the creation process contains three C's clarity, certainty and commitment. The first step in creation, in creating something new in this world, is getting hyper clear about what it is that you want to create, that you want to experience. The second C and that's exactly what a vision is. It's the product of our clarity.
Speaker 1:The second C is certainty, and certainty is really about letting go of the worry, doubt and fear that you can't have it. There's stories, there's corrupt beliefs that are inside of you, there's doubts, there's disempowering beliefs, there's disempowered thoughts, there's disempowered emotions, and it's learning how to navigate those and how to let them go and how to replace them with unshakable certainty and trust and faith in yourself, trust and faith in life, trust and faith in God. Certainty comes from letting go of the stories and the beliefs that convince you to worry, and worry is just praying for what you don't want. But attaining certainty means that you're letting go of the negative beliefs and the disempowered situations and things that are happening inside your mind and body that cause you to not trust that you can have anything you want and you can have anything you want, and you can. When we let go of worry, when we let go of doubt, when we let go of fear, it's replaced by certainty.
Speaker 1:And the third step is commitment. And there's three parts to commitment. One is there's taking inspired action in the direction of your vision. Not haphazard action, not massive, strugglicious action, not stressful action, not painful action, not sleep deprived action, just inspired action from a place of trust and certainty. The second step is patience. Impatience is a sign that you don't trust. So, inside of commitment, inspired action with patience, knowing that the what is your responsibility, but the how and the when are none of your business. The right timing is the perfect timing, not your timing.
Speaker 1:And the third step in the commitment process is when it shows up and it will receive. When it shows up and it will receive Clarity, certainty and commitment. Inside of the Choose your Destiny video course, which is free on the website, it walks you through. There's 12 videos and a workbook to walk you through that process and the first step the clarity, is where you create a vision for yourself. Now, also in the Choose your Destiny video course, it's going to talk about the meditation bundle and I, in my retreats and in my intensives, I lead meditation and what I do is I lead you in the process of taking this vision that you have for your life and beginning to install it in your body and in your mind and body so that you can let the disempowered circumstances, the disempowered thoughts, beliefs and emotions, let them go and replace them with empowered beliefs, thoughts and emotions, and you do that.
Speaker 1:You could do that through meditation and in a meditation bundle on my website. It's a very powerful tool. Right now there's nine, I believe, meditations in there, and every time I create another one, I just add it. So there's a bunch of meditations in there, especially one called Installing Future you. Installing Future you is a powerful 15-minute meditation that will help you take your vision and start to embed it, and start to install it into your belief system, into your mindset, into your heart, set into your body.
Speaker 1:And when you embody your vision, that's when you'll begin to live your vision. And this process, this process of clarity, certainty and commitment, will help you embody new circumstances, because when you embody them, you'll step right into them. When you become your vision, you will live your vision. Now listen, this is typical goal-setting season, but I invite you into a different place, into creating and designing the exact life that you want to experience, so that we can begin to step into them. And the more that you see that you can build whatever you want, you can have whatever you want, you can do whatever you want, but you got to do it from a place of clarity, certainty and commitment as a powerful creator that you are. The more you experience that level of creation, the more you'll begin to trust yourself and trust life, and the less circumstances will control your thought process and your emotions.
Speaker 1:Go to my website, grab the video course, grab the meditation bundle and get started on this work. Inside the video course is everything you need to get started. Plus. Then go grab the meditation bundle and that'll accelerate the gains, and that'll accelerate the gains. On January 10th and 11th in St Louis Missouri, I have the Choose your Destiny Vision Intensive two-day in-person vision intensive coming up and I'm inviting you the details are also on the website I'm inviting you to come and spend two days with me and let me walk you through this process in person. If you can't, the video course is a great replacement, but if you can get to St Louis right outside of St Louis, missouri. If you can get here and do this work with me, I guarantee you it'll accelerate your gains. Guys, it's vision setting time of year. Don't settle for goals. If you enjoyed what you heard and you want to learn more, go to wwwinnerwealthglobalcom for more tools and resources.