The Inner Wealth Podcast

Ep183: Understanding the Gap Between How You Feel and How the World Sees You.

• Mike Kitko

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In this episode, Mike dives into the powerful insights of natal astrology and the interplay between his Leo Sun and Capricorn Moon to explore the dynamics of inner and outer alignment. Using personal stories, he shares how these two energies—one vibrant, expressive, and passionate, the other reserved, driven, and pragmatic—have influenced his life and the way he’s perceived by the world.

This conversation isn’t just about astrology; it’s a call to action for deeper self-awareness. Mike invites listeners to examine the gap between how they feel inside and how others experience them, and to use tools like the Soul Sciences to transcend internal conflicts and live in alignment with their truest selves.

Key Takeaways

- Inner and Outer Worlds Can Conflict. Your inner experience might not match how others perceive you, and exploring this gap is key to alignment.

- The Power of Self-Awareness. Understanding your astrological design can reveal why you think, feel, and act the way you do.

- Balance Between Expression and Responsibility. Your natural energy might pull you in different directions, but harmonizing these forces unlocks your full potential.

- People Feel Your Energy. Authenticity resonates; how you show up impacts how others experience your presence and energy.

- Your Unique Design is a Gift. Tools like natal astrology, Human Design, and Gene Keys offer pathways to uncovering the layers of who you are and what drives you.


Notable Quotes

“Your Sun sign is how the world sees you. Your Moon sign is how you feel inside.”
“Use your strengths, but don’t let them define you. Transcend the conflict and harmonize the gifts within.”
“When you align with your true energy, people feel it. They experience the love, passion, and authenticity you radiate.”
“You are not your emotional state. You are here to live as your brightest self.”
“Self-awareness isn’t just a concept—it’s the gateway to living a life aligned with your highest potential.”


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


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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 was at a party recently in New Orleans for my good friend. There was somebody who was in the inner wealth mastermind at one point and they spent some time in there and they really got to know me, really got to to understand who I am and what I'm about, and they were at the party as well and we're hanging out and this, this gal and I'm gonna say she's absolutely an amazing soul scientist. So she studies, she deeply studies natal astrology, and so we're like we were connected and we're in lockstep in terms of our love and our affinity and our appreciation of the soul sciences and the cosmic way we're designed. It's really awesome. If you haven't listened to, I've got a couple episodes some episodes ago about soul sciences and the work that we do inside the Inner Wealth, mastermind, and how the soul sciences, human design, gene keys, astrology, mayan astrology, how these things have positively impacted my life and helped me understand myself at a deeper level. And there's always another layer and there's always another thing to unpack and to understand. But anyway, we're engaged in a conversation and she said, mike, you know, it took me a while to lean into you and to even appreciate being around you, because I was scared of you. And I was surprised because, if you know me, there's really nothing to be scared of.

Speaker 1:

She said, when I looked at your Facebook and your social media personality and your persona and the image that you cast in the world, she said you just look angry, you look mean, you look like you're in attack mode and that was very, very off-putting for me. And she said it took me a while to really get to know you and really understand you at a deeper level. And she said but once I did, I saw that your branding is all wrong and the image that you put out in the world. It's turning good people off and it's pushing people away. It's not pulling the right people in towards you. It's pushing people away because your branding and the image that you're portraying in the world is not reflective of who you are. And it took me, like. First of all it took my breath away, but second of all it it sent me on a path to try to understand exactly what what she was talking about.

Speaker 1:

And when I first put there's a, there's an image, there's a branding image of me on on my social and it's me on a table, leaning on a table. You see my torso, you see from my solar plexus up and my hands. And if you're watching the video, you see me do it. My hands are, my elbows are out on the table and my hands I've got a kind of like I'm holding my fist and I've got this stern look on my face.

Speaker 1:

When I first put that image out into the world and I made it, I made it appear black, right, like what is it? Noir, monochrome, whatever. I had a really good friend of mine reach out and say, mike, I don't like that is not reflective of who you are. Like, don't use that as your headshot. That is not reflective of who you are, don't use that as your headshot. That's not reflective of who you are. And my response to that was but when I look at that picture, that's how I feel.

Speaker 1:

Now that's why I've been using these images, these black and white images and these monochrome and the images where my face is intense. And you know I've got these, I got a stern look on my face and you know you're not going to see a lot of pictures of me in the world, you know, on my branding and things, of me smiling or of me light. Yet when you are in my presence, that's what you're going to feel from. You're going to feel the lightness, you're going to feel the love, you're going to feel definitely some intensity, but it's a loving intensity that is empowering and encouraging and uplifting and that is why people love to be in my energy and to be in my space and that's why people ask me for my time. And that's why people ask me for my time and that's why people invite me places and want to go to lunch and have coffee, because there's such a peaceful presence and my heart is so big and my aura is so big and my energy is so big that people love being in my presence. But if you look at what she was saying and what my friend years ago said is, if you look at that picture, that's not the impression that you get of who Mike Kitko is.

Speaker 1:

Now I want to unpack this and help you understand. I definitely am going to use some natal astrology to help you understand this. Now, I am a lover of the soul sciences, so I love to understand myself and go into my soul sciences, go into my natal astrology, go into my gene keys, my human design, and really unpack this and see what I'm seeing and see what I'm feeling and see why I'm seeing it and see what it is about my design that's causing all of these things and disruptions in the patterns. And once I get a better sense of awareness about these, then it helps me pivot and make the right decisions and choose higher. There's two. I'm going to talk about two primary. There's three actually, but we're going to talk about your natal sun sign and your natal moon sign. Now, what natal means is when you were born. When you were born, and there's these two, there's sun, there's moon, and there's also your rising sign and these are like the big three and these have a lot of impact on the quality of your life and how you show up. But we're just today, we're just going to talk about the sun, the impacts and the effects of the sun and the moon.

Speaker 1:

I am a Leo sun Capricorn moon. I am a Leo sun and Capricorn moon. I'm going to give you a little bit of a description about what each of these is and the role that they play, and hopefully by me telling you this, you not only get to understand me at a deeper level, but hopefully it gives you some kind of a spark and an interest in the soul scientists, soul sciences and in natal astrology and human design and gene keys. But I am a Leo sun and what that means is I am passionate about being alive. I am passionate about creating in this world. I am passionate about inspiring people. I am passionate and intense in my love the amount of love that I have for people and uplifting people and protecting people and encouraging people, and I love always leaving people better than I found them, and I do that in so many different ways, through my creativity and through my heart and through uplifting words and empowering content and just books, and everything that I write is, and everything that I speak is meant to be, uplifting and empowering, and that right there is mostly the expression of my Leo sun, the energy that you feel. And the writing goes back to, and some of the other creativity goes to, other aspects of my natal astrology. But the Leo is creative and passionate and energized and just loves absolutely hard.

Speaker 1:

Leo's son also loves the spotlight and loves attention and this is why I love being in front of humongous crowds and I love just sharing the best of me and sharing my energy and sharing my enthusiasm and sharing my love and just it's like when I speak to an audience and I speak to a crowd, it's more like a performance than a speaking engagement. It's more like a performance, it's more like a play than it is a training session. There's highs, there's volume highs and volume lows, there's whispers, there's pauses, there's highs, there's volume highs and volume lows. There's whispers, there's pauses, there's breaks, there's intense words which are meant to get attention and so that you can feel what I'm trying to express, not just hear what I'm trying to express. When you see me speak, when you listen to this podcast, you're hearing my Leo son, you're hearing the Leo in me, you're hearing the drama, you're hearing the passion that's inside of me, that's trying to get out. Now there's a lover of attention and a lover of people. In that Leo sun there's a lover of my tribe and of my people and of my community that you're seeing, you're hearing and you're experiencing in my Leo sun.

Speaker 1:

And then there's the Capricorn moon, and then there's the Capricorn moon, and the Capricorn moon is one of the most driven signs, one of the most serious signs, one of the most intense and pragmatic signs, one of the most determined signs, one of the most committed, one of the most focused if I said that already and there's a certain level of emotional resilience, emotional protection, emotional guarding, a certain amount of emotional mastery, a certain amount of emotional withholding that the Capricorn moon feels out of a sense of responsibility and duty and obligation of not being too overly emotional, being emotionally responsible. And the theme of Capricorn is really about responsibility, socially, professionally, relationally responsibility. While the Leo is really about being expressive, the Capricorn is really about being reserved and it's really about a little more isolationism and a little bit more protectionism and it's a little more about being independent and and being one of one. It's it's really about sometimes, sometimes, whether this be for the shadow or the benefit, the detriment or the benefit it's about being able to be me, do me and to win because of me, by myself. And that's what I feel.

Speaker 1:

Your moon sign is how you feel inside. Your sun sign is how people perceive you. It's what you show in the world, it's what radiates in the world. It's how people experience you in the world. It's what people feel from your energy. It's what people feel from being in your aura. It's what people experience in your presence, where your moon sign is really what's happening inside of you, in the emotions, in the feelings, in the inner world that you experience.

Speaker 1:

And if you listen to those two the sun the Leo sun and the Capricorn moon if you are familiar with astrology, you're saying these two are pulling in opposite directions. And they are. They're pulling in opposite directions and this is why I've always experienced and I've always told people I love to be in front of the room, but I don't love to be in the room. I want to be in front of people, I want to be teaching and empowering and uplifting, but as soon as the speaking engagement's done, I want to be home by myself. And it's not because I feel like I'm full of myself or I feel better than anybody else. It's because I'm more comfortable in front of a crowd than I am in the crowd, because the Leo sun pulls me in front but the Capricorn moon pulls me home. The Leo sun wants to show up and the Capricorn moon wants to achieve and just preserve and be resilient and just work on the next thing that's necessary.

Speaker 1:

There's a little bit of isolationism, maybe a lot of it sometimes, in the Capricorn moon, and I'm telling you this because I led this off saying that she said that the way people perceive me and the way she experiences me is exactly opposite of how I show up on in my branding on social media, which also goes back to when I was first choosing my headshot years ago and my friend that knew me at a very deep level when he said that's not a representation to you, because what I've done with my branding, what I've done with the imaging that I put into the world, is I've projected how I feel and not how I'm perceived. There's an image that I share every once in a while on Facebook every once in a while when I'm showing the relationship that I have with my wife and it's she and I. I've got my arm around her and I'm laughing and she's looking at me laughing. I'm looking straight on laughing and she's looking at me laughing and there's huge smiles on both of our faces and it has some passion, it has some love and you can see and feel the passion, you can see the love, you can see the joy you can experience through that picture. You can experience the joy of what's happening inside of my mind and inside of my heart and inside of her mind and inside of her heart. You can experience that and when I share that, there's a lot of people that connect with it. But sometimes I share the darker images of Mike and there's not a whole lot of interaction and it took a while for me to understand, because I'm sharing with the world how I feel, but that's not how people experience, because I'm not that dark image, I'm not that intense asshole that shows up in that image. And at that party, when she said that it was the greatest act of kindness and the greatest act that an ally could ever share with another ally, that's I've got your back and I need to tell you this, even though it might be uncomfortable. What, what my closest allies experience from me and with me, is love and commitment and dedication and resilience and just empowerment and upliftment and protection. That's who they experience out of that Leo sun. That's who they experience out of that leo sun.

Speaker 1:

But every once in a while that capricorn moon comes out and it's very serious and responsible and direct and impersonal to some degree, distant to some degree protectionist to some degree, protectionist to some degree. And these two, the Leo sun and the Capricorn moon, are in. They're going in opposite directions, and to harmonize them in the world is completely. It's a challenge, it's been a challenge, but it's because of the Capricorn moon that I succeeded in the Marine Corps. The Capricorn moon is the reason I succeeded in corporate America, because when that responsibility kicks in, when that achievement kicks in, when that need to get things done kicks in that Capricorn moon, there's nothing that'll beat it. But being that 100% of the time is not what I'm here to be or not who I am, and when I show the world that image, that's really a Capricorn moon I'm really doing myself and the world a disjustice, a disservice.

Speaker 1:

The reason I'm sharing all this with you is because you too have a pattern, a design. You too have a genetic makeup where your sun sign and your moon sign are most likely different. You two have a sun and a moon that may be in conflict. You might have a sun and a moon that are different but supportive of each other, and you may be like me, where your sun and moon sign are in relative detriment. They're pulling in opposite directions, and one's trying to get me in front of a crowd, another's trying to get me at home. You, too, have this gap, this difference between how people perceive you and how people feel, and I wrote a book called the Imposter in Charge, and that's exactly what that book is about, although I didn't understand all of this at the time when I read it or when I wrote it.

Speaker 1:

That's exactly what the imposter syndrome is is. The Capricorn moon was always looking for the next level of results, and the Leo sun is what people experienced, and they felt the success that I exude as the Leo sun, but I felt the lack of success that I had as the Capricorn moon, because the Capricorn moon is like there's more, but there's more, but there's more, but there's more, but there's more, and that's the scream of the Capricorn moon. But the Leo sun people witnessed that as powerful and as empowering, as encouraging, as uplifting, as successful, as protective, as centered and grounded and aligned and loving and passionate, but when these two are different, the inner world of you is going to experience the world differently than the outer world of you. And that sums up the imposter in charge. No matter how much success I had on the outside, no matter how much people saw me or felt me as, or experienced me as, successful inside, there was always a gap, and that's what the imposter syndrome is a gap and that's what the imposter syndrome is. Guys in your chart, the way you experience the world in your inner world is vastly different than how people experience you. And again, sometimes these are supportive and sometimes these are not supportive, they're unsupportive and they're pulling you in different directions.

Speaker 1:

I would encourage you to understand and really do a deep dive into what do I feel and what do people tell me about myself and see if there's a gap, see if there's a difference, see if there's a conflict there or see if they fit together in some way, shape or form. But for so many years I've lived as my emotional state. But when I was at this party, she so lovingly said but you're here to transcend that and live as the Leo instead of as the cat moon. Use the cat moon to drive you, but live as the Leo, as the Leo sun, and shine brightly and intensely. In this world. People want to feel the energy of the Leo sun. Be that for people, use the cat moon, don't be the cat moon. And that was a beautiful, beautiful experience.

Speaker 1:

Guys, there's a lot more to who you are and why you experience the world the way you experience it than you'll ever know until you really start getting in here and becoming more self-aware and starting to understand yourself at a deeper level and why you like the things you like, why you do the things you do, why you want to be the things you want to be. All of this serves, and what serves most powerfully is a deeper level of self-awareness, and that's what my friend gave me this weekend. Guys, I love you, I encourage you and challenge you to dive deeper into this stuff and if you need a pathway to it, reach out. I'd love to help get you started. I've got ways to get you started on this path of the soul.

Speaker 1:

Sciences and new levels of self-awareness lean in. I'm the Leo sun, I've got a heart of gold and it's huge. And the only time I've ever ever expressed my Capricorn moon outside is when, in some case I felt threatened or I felt driven to achieve something, but 90% of the time, 95% of that time that Leo sun wants to come out, because that Leo sun loves everyone and everything. Guys understand who you are and where you're going with this whole thing and you can't lose. If you enjoyed what you heard and you want to learn more, go to wwwinnerwealthglobalcom for more tools and resources.