The Inner Wealth Podcast

Ep175. Live With Intention: The Power of Designing a Life You Love.

• Mike Kitko

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In this transformative episode, Mike dives deep into the concept of intention—the powerful force behind creating a life that feels aligned, purposeful, and inspired. Drawing from personal experience and hard-won insights, Mike explores why some visions take shape effortlessly while others stall, and he shares the key ingredients for creating a vision that not only excites you but transforms your entire life.

Discover how to shift from chasing goals to crafting a vision-driven life that aligns with your soul’s purpose. This episode is packed with practical wisdom and actionable steps to help you move the needle on your freedom, success, and fulfillment.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Intention Drives Creation: True transformation begins with clarity, certainty, and full commitment. Anything less results in stagnation.
  2. Stop Living on Autopilot: When life feels like an adversary, it kicks you around. Viewing life as an ally changes everything.
  3. Vision Over Goals: Goals are stepping stones; a powerful vision is the foundation of a life worth waking up for every day.
  4. Commit Fully to What You Love: Half-hearted efforts lead to frustration. When you align your energy with what inspires you, the results come naturally.
  5. Monetizing Passion: Learn how to move from obligation-based work to creating financial freedom by focusing on what truly lights you up.


Notable Quotes:

  • “If 99% commitment equals 0% commitment, then 100% commitment is the only path to success.”
  • “Your beliefs create your reality. When you believe life is your ally, everything shifts.”
  • “Don’t just set goals—create a vision for your life. Goals are about attainment; vision is about alignment.”
  • “The what is your responsibility; the how and the when are none of your business.”
  • “When you align your life with your passion, you don’t just survive—you thrive.”

Music Credit: "What's Left of Me" by Wes Hoffman & Friends

Resources Mentioned:

Other Links and Resources:

Click here to visit our website to access free tools and resources, our Meditation Bundle, upcoming events, and our coaching service offerings.

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Subscribe to my YouTube: / @mikekitko

Mike Kitko is an executive self-mastery coach, speaker and author. He found external success through powerful titles, incomes, and material possessions. He ultimately fell into depression, toxic abuse of alcohol, and the near collapse of his family before he began a journey of internal happiness and success.

Speaker 1:

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:

I've been doing a lot of contemplating about in my life and over the last eight years, since the transformation, the rebirth, I guess, if you will, the reset, the great reset in my life about what it was like when, what I intended to create, when it worked, and when I intended to create and it didn't work, I wanted I've been diving into really understanding the differences in in in those two categories, because there's there's some visions that I got really clear about, that that worked, and there's some visions that I got really clear about that didn't work, and and there's a I found some, some threads of, of similarities and which which helps me understand, you me understand the creation process at an even greater level. Now I'll say that we are coming up quickly. We are coming up on the beginning of the year, and this is where I've already done an episode a couple weeks ago about not goal setting but vision setting for the new year, and I'll encourage you don't just set goals you can have some goals in your vision but focus on creating a vision for your life. Focus on creating a vision for the life that you want to live. If you were like me and when I was 2016 and before, I was just going through the motions every day and I was allowing life to dictate terms, and instead of me dictating terms, I allow. Instead of me choosing my, my destiny, choosing where I was, what I was going to do in my life, I allowed life to direct the flow, to direct me and to to push me around.

Speaker 1:

And, and that's what happens when you feel that life is an adversary, life tends to kick you around a little bit, and since then, I've realized that life really is an ally and life just wants to know. And you can call it God, you can call it life, you can call it universe, you can call it source energy, it doesn't matter, it's all the same thing, right? But when you view life, universe, god, whatever consciousness when you view it as an adversary, you're going to get kicked around a little bit, you're going to get beat up, you're going to get bloody and you're going to get scraped. Now, there's always going to be like freaking challenges and obstacles in this world, but it doesn't need to be a struggle. And there's an author that I love. His name is Stuart Wild, and he wrote a great book called Life Was Never Meant to Be a Struggle, and I truly, truly believe this and I connect deeply with that now. But back then I would have told you that that book was untrue, that life was a struggle, but that's because I was making life a struggle and that's because I was expecting life to fight me and I was expecting life to be a battle and, in the absence of a battle, I was creating a battle. And ever since I've I've stepped back, I've understood that your beliefs create your reality. So when you believe that life is an adversary, it's going to happen and you're going to think that it's life, but it's really you. Now I know I now have like this ally relationship with life, where I know life wants for me what it wants for me, not more, not less, but there are still some times that I meet with resistance when I'm looking to create new circumstances or new outcomes or certain results. There's still some resistance that I, I guess, recognize and I'm starting to really understand why this resistance is there. And I'll tell you that the resistance that I've recognized, it's there because love life. Life loves me so much, because God or universe source loves me so much, it creates resistance because it's intentional resistance. Now, that might sound delusional, but hear me out and let me unpack this.

Speaker 1:

So, back in 2016, 2017, when I first created a vision for my life, it was very, very simple and it was really money focused. It was really career focused and when I was starting my coaching business, I decided not to go back to corporate. Well, actually, when I was trying to figure out who I was going to be when I grew up, I had one foot in the coaching world and I had one foot in the career world where, on one hand, I was looking for a job and, on the other hand, in case, coaching didn't work, and, on the other hand, I was, I was looking for coaching clients and I kind of had, I was kind of straddling these two worlds. And if, if you're anything like me, whatever, if 99% commitment equals 0% commitment, and and whenever you're not committed to something, what for me, when I'm, whenever I wasn't, whenever I'm not committed to something, it doesn't work All right. That's why the creation process is clarity, certainty and commitment, because whenever I'm not committed to something, then it doesn't work for me, it just doesn't work out. And that's because commitment is a powerful creative force. It's a powerful creative mechanism. So whenever you, whenever your, your energy is all in in a certain direction, you're going to crush it with some, with some minor exceptions, and I'm going to share what those are.

Speaker 1:

But when I, when I first created a vision, I had my, I had a foot in each of those areas and and then at some, at one point, I took the foot out of the career world and I put it into the coaching world and things started taking off. Now my vision for my coaching business was very, very simple, because I was starting with zero dollars of income. Now I had some financial savings, I had some financial margin, I had a little bit of money put away. So fortunately, I had that to my benefit and my survival wasn't in jeopardy. But when I started my coaching business, I had $0 of income and I simply wanted 10 clients, $10,000 a month. That was it the vision for my business 10 clients, 10k, 10 clients, 10k and all the meditative activity that I do.

Speaker 1:

If you go to my website, you can grab my meditation bundle and inside of that meditation bundle there's a meditation. It's called Installing Future you. It's amazing. It's a great meditation. It helps you really connect to the future that you're looking to create and invite it into the present moment and allow it into your mind and body. Because when you allow your future state, the future circumstances, into your mind and body now, then your mind and body and your unconscious mind specifically starts to connect and starts to create that almost without effort. All right, you'll start to see evidence of how this stuff becomes true. So go to my website and grab that meditation bundle. Okay, installing future you is amazing, amazing meditation and I've got nothing but awesome positive feedback from people that are actually connecting with that meditation and the bundle.

Speaker 1:

Now, I was doing that type of meditative work on 10 clients, 10k, 10 clients, 10k and it's like all of my energy was on 10 clients, 10 workshops, and I was looking for one-on-one clients and instead of signing one-on-one clients. I got curious. I was sitting at a coffee meeting with another Marine vet and I just said, hey, what kind of problems are showing up in your life and business? And he says, hey, I got big goals, my team's got big goals, but I'm struggling to motivate them. And I just asked a simple question. I said what if I can help with that? And he said what, what would you do? And I said how about? How about a workshop? How about I just jam for 90 minutes and I just like, like their asses on fire? And he said that sounds good. So so that was $150 deal and in fact by the time we got up from the table I had two of those. I did one on a Tuesday and one on a Thursday. That came pretty quickly and easily. And from that single workshop I signed two clients.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so I went from looking for one-on-one clients unable to get them, unable to find them to solving someone's problem which was inspiring their team, and I made it about them and not about me. And from that workshop I signed two one-on-one clients and that was the beginning. Literally, that week was the beginning of my coaching business, and that's from there, after the first sale. The tendency is when you enter a new arena and you make the first sale, the subsequent sales come a lot easier, and that was the beginning of my coaching business. Now, it wasn't but six months later where I had 16 clients and in excess of $10,000 a month.

Speaker 1:

So that came pretty quickly and easily and I attribute I can attribute that to a couple things, couple factors. One it was I was very clear what I wanted 10 clients, 10k, right, and and I started to build the belief that I could have it. And when I built the belief that I could have it, then it started showing up. All right Evidence of the uh, the belief that I had in my mind and the vision that I had in my mind and the feeling that I had in my body started showing up. And it happened pretty, it felt pretty naturally and in some cases, the way people connected with me I can't explain, because it's not like they knew that I wasn't advertising, but for some reason word got out pretty quickly that I was looking to jump into the coaching arena and suddenly people that I didn't know knew about me, and I can't always explain that. Okay, so the what's your responsibility, but the how and the when are none of your business in the creation process. Now there's there are things and I can say that happened easily, but there are things that I've gotten really, really clear about that didn't necessarily build easily and build quickly or build at all, and I believe I understand why.

Speaker 1:

Now, when, most recently, I've gotten kind of a little burst of clarity and the goal was to grow my mastermind to a hundred seats. A hundred seats and uh, in in each seat in my mastermind we have up to two people. So a husband and a wife is one one seat. Uh, if, if there's a committed life partner you know a wife and a husband, or if there's a committed uh life partner in in any way where you're committed, then two people join the mastermind and that's one seat. So, and there are full-fledged members. Now the goal was to grow it to a hundred members and I got the, we got the 50 and from 50, it really started peeling back. Okay, and it started once we hit that kind of like high watermark of 50 people in the mastermind, it started peeling back and I I couldn't explain it then but but I know exactly why. Uh it, it, it peeled back.

Speaker 1:

Now and this hindsight's, 2020, you can always look, look in your rear view and your rear view is 20, but you know the windshield. When you're looking at your windshield you can't see around the corners, right? But the point being is I never really wanted a hundred people in my mastermind. The way it was constructed and the way it was built and it the hardest thing for a human being to do is to get radically and radically vulnerable and honest with ourselves.

Speaker 1:

The putting a goal and an intention for 100 students in my mastermind was it was a little bit of a security move. It was a little bit and I teach about don't make your your vision about insecurity, inadequacy and insignificance. Don't try to prevent loss. Don't try to become someone and don't try to be, you know. Make become like you matter, significant through your vision. You got to find things that inspire you and and my mastermind does inspire me but building my mastermind doesn't inspire me. Okay, the waking up every day to to try to find people and look to find people who are attracted to not just my message but to a community, and to build the mastermind that was never inspirational to me.

Speaker 1:

I love having my mastermind, I love teaching my mastermind, I love coaching my mastermind, but that's not what I wake up excited to do every day is to build the mastermind and that's why I struggle to build it, because I don't love that process. I love the process of teaching it. Now I've got an interwealth community and that's slowly growing, but I don't love the process of growing those things. But there's something that I do love the process of and that's creating content. Now here's the irony I've got a podcast. This is episode 175. I've been at this thing since August 2021. There's been an episode that's dropped every week. It's been listened to listeners in Europe and in freaking Asia and in South America, so it's not like this podcast is just willy-nilly. Most episodes, most podcasts, don't make it past the fifth episode and most podcast episodes don't get more than 10 downloads and I'm way beyond that, obviously.

Speaker 1:

But I've never monetized this podcast and I don't intend right now, I don't intend, to start charging for the podcast. But there are ways and there are avenues like sponsorships. There are things that you can do to monetize the podcast, but I've never done that. Now I've got a couple books that I've written and there's not much income that comes from there. A little bit that trickles in, a couple bucks a month that trickle in, but there's no substantial monetization of my books and my content. But there's no substantial monetization of my books and my content. I've got a blog and I've never monetized my blog. I've got workshops and I do monetize some of that, but I haven't truly monetized my content. And the crazy part about it is I get super excited to create content and I love creating courses and I love creating podcast episodes and I love creating videos and I love creating. You know those reels. If you go to Tik TOK and if you go to Instagram, you'll see the reels that I create. I love creating, I'm a creative machine, but yet I've never truly monetized the thing that I love doing and building on a daily basis. But I monetized my memberships but I don't love building them.

Speaker 1:

And creating a vision based on the building of the mastermind was a scarcity move. It was a bridge to a circumstance when, really, when I think about it and when I feel into this future and this vision and this thing that I want to create in my life and this direction that I really want my life to move, to create in my life, in this direction that I really want my life to move that I'm shifting into. It's that when I monetize my content, then the mastermind and the community will be happy consequences from the monetization of my content, but they won't be the reason that I wake up. The reason that I wake up will not be to build the mastermind. The reason I wake up every day will be to create powerful content that moves the needle in the world and monetize what I love to do instead of what I feel obligated to do. Then I get to pull back my obligation to building the mastermind and building the community and just focus on creating the content and monetizing the content, and this is a complete paradigm shift. This is a complete energy shift. This is a complete refocus. It might sound like it's slight, but I built the mastermind and the community and I felt like the content was just there to get the attention of the right people so that they would be attracted to the mastermind and to the community, so I could teach them, my focus being on building those, but just having them be happy consequences and happy outcomes of the monetization and the creation of the content that I love and I'm inspired to create every day.

Speaker 1:

I am a creative powerhouse and I look back over the last eight years, every single time I've shifted all of my energy in a certain direction, when I've shifted all of my attention in a certain direction, when I've shifted all of my focus in a certain direction, like I did with the coaching business, and I got 100% committed to that direction and it was really. It felt freeing and fulfilling as soon as I connected, as soon as I committed and moved my energy. And it felt connected, committed, it felt, it felt inspired and I felt like ready to go, like ready to just jump out of my skin in order to create that. It's always worked. That seed of intention, that seed of the dream, that seed of desire when planted in the right direction, when planted in the right soil, when given the right nutrients, when given the right sunlight, it grows itself, just like my coaching business did early on, I didn't need to force anything. It grew because I was inspired at that point to experience 10 clients and 10K, and then life universe source, god, whatever you want to call it. It gave me the tailwind that I needed and the support that I needed to realize that dream.

Speaker 1:

Now, as we come up on the beginning of the year, the end of 2024, the beginning of 2025,. What I would encourage you to do is start getting really clear about what you want, what direction you want your life to go, not just what goals you want, but what do you want your life to look like. It's not just about goal attainment. It's about vision creation. It's about lifestyle creation, choosing a life, putting on, designing a life, creating a life and stepping into a life that you get excited to waking up to each day, each and every day. This isn't taking something new and fitting it into a life that doesn't feel aligned for you. This is about creating a full lifestyle and a full life that feels aligned for you. To wake up to that you get excited.

Speaker 1:

I have time freedom, I have financial freedom. I have not a lot of obligations and not a lot of commitments. I do have my mastermind calls and I have my community calls and I do have speaking engagements and I do have some coaching calls, but these are things I get to do, not things I have to do. Outside of that. Oftentimes, I have discovery calls and that's where, when I'm trying to create more discovery calls and more lead sourcing, that's where it feels like my life is out of alignment Not in the teaching, but in the trying to create more mastermind and community membership. I hope this is making sense. There's something in you that you are totally inspired to realize and totally inspired to create not just the destination but the entire journey of creating that thing.

Speaker 1:

Don't settle for a bridge between where you are and there and don't put a bridge between where you are and there and don't put a bridge in between, like that's what I did with the building of the mastermind and building of the community. I put a bridge between my current state and my future state. I knew I wanted to have a completely open like life and time freedom and I wanted complete control of my time. But I always felt this heavy burden of chasing people to teach and of trying to sell and looking to persuade people that I have the ability and I have service-based offerings to help them create more freedom and fulfillment in their life. And in order to help them create more freedom and fulfillment, I gave up some of mine because I was doing things out of obligation, because I had a bridge between where I am and where I want to be.

Speaker 1:

And now I'm removing the bridge. I'm still going to teach, I am and where I wanna be, and now I'm removing the bridge. I'm still going to teach my mastermind and I'm still gonna teach my community, but I'm not going to actively only focus on building those things. I'm gonna focus on monetizing the content, creating content and creating more financial freedom in my life from the monetization of my content, because that's where freedom really lies for me. Not only do I get to create the content, but now I get to monetize it, and this is a new revelation to me. It might seem very simple and basic and I'm a very elementary thinker in some cases, but now I get to move my life or move my energy, my time, my focus, my energy, my focus, and I get to completely commit to this new direction and then, because of that, I'll have more people to teach in the mastermind, in the community, but I won't need to make the building of that my focus. I hope this is making sense.

Speaker 1:

Listen, if you're ready to create a vision for your life, on my website, innerwealthglobalcom, in the free offerings, the free product section, there's the Choose your Destiny video course. It's a completely free video course. There's 12 modules, there's a workbook, there's plenty of work, and that thing will help you unpack exactly what you want in your life and it will also help you continue to gain new insights, new knowledge, new awareness, just like I'm continuing to gain, so that you can continue to advance the needle on your life, on your circumstance, on your quality of life, on your wealth, success, happiness, the love that you experience in your life. As we move out of 2024, as we move into 2025, don't focus on goal creation. Focus on vision creation, because that's really what you're after. You're looking to move the needle on your quality of life and your lifestyle.

Speaker 1:

If you're listening to this podcast, you're a lifestyle guy or gal and you're looking to create a new lifestyle. You're looking to up-level and upgrade your lifestyle, not just accomplish goals. Let other people accomplish goals. Let's design and create a life of freedom. Goals let's design and create a life of freedom. Guys, love you guys. Thanks for letting me jam. I'm going to put the link to the Choose your Destiny video course in the comments in the show notes. Go, grab a copy of that and get started on it. All right, it works. The work is powerful, it's impactful and you get to do a little work for me or work with me and hear my voice for a while. All right, love you guys, talk soon and, yeah, see you next week. If you enjoyed what you heard and you want to learn more, go to wwwinnerwealthglobalcom for more tools and resources.