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
Ep195. You Already Deserve it. You Don’t Have to Earn What’s Already Yours.
In this episode, Mike shares a raw and personal reflection on how the belief that we have to earn or deserve love, success, and connection can quietly sabotage what we want most. When business slowed down and pressure mounted, Mike found himself pulling away — not just from his mission, but from the woman who’s stood by him the entire time.
Through the lens of a powerful conversation with his wife, he unpacks the shame, the old conditioning, and the realization that he was withholding affection and intimacy because deep down, he didn’t feel worthy.
This episode invites you to look at where you’re still proving, performing, or waiting to feel “enough” — and offers a path back to wholeness, power, and presence.
If you’ve ever questioned whether you’re worthy of the life you want… listen in.
Key Takeaways
- You Already Deserve What You’re Waiting For
Love and abundance aren’t earned — they’re received when we decide we’re ready. - Vulnerability Builds Trust and Resonance
Your people don’t want your polish. They want your presence. - Comparison Creates Illusions
You’re not behind. You’re just comparing your back office to someone else’s front stage. - We Teach What We Need to Heal
Even teachers carry blind spots. That’s why we all need mirrors. - Letting Go Creates New Power
The minute you stop needing to prove yourself, you unlock a new level of freedom and connection.
Notable Quotes
- “I started making a living by telling the truth about my pain.”
- “I was coaching people not to earn their worth… while secretly still believing I had to.”
- “She didn’t want me to change. She just wanted to feel me again.”
- “Coaching is just reading the instructions written outside the box.”
- “When you believe you have to earn love… you forget it’s been yours the whole time.”
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.
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 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 made a living on being vulnerable, all right. So over the last since 2016, when I hit the reset, I started all over and put my body back together, put my marriage back together, put this business together. Later I started this podcast and became a published author. When I hit that reset, I started making a living on being vulnerable and being raw. That reset, I started making a living on being vulnerable and being raw.
Speaker 1:The very first chapter in my first book, the Imposter in Charge. It talks about kind of the darkness that I had been hiding from family and from friends and from people that I worked with. I was kind of playing pretend in life. I was kind of being two different people At work. I would say I had it all figured out at home, and home life was great and we were awesome. And meanwhile there's times where I struggled at work and then I would go home and home was an absolute train wreck and I would pretend like I had it all together at work. And I lived these two lives. And the first chapter in the Impostor in Charge I talk about how abusive I was to my wife and my kids and how neglectful I was of myself and how I felt like I was an imposter at work, and that's why it's called the Impostor in Charge. I felt like a fraudful I was of myself and how I felt like I was an imposter at work, and that's why it's called the imposter in charge. I felt like a fraud. I was keeping secrets. I just didn't want anybody to figure out that I didn't. I wasn't, I didn't think I was that good. It was just so much. You know, I had so many masks on and I was keeping so many secrets.
Speaker 1:And in when I started this business, the first thing I did and well, when I started this, I guess I don't know teaching, coaching, influencing space when I, when I did, one of the first things I did is. I made a video that a live Facebook live, and I started telling the story of all the darkness that had settled into my life and what I was doing to overcome it and how who I was becoming through releasing and from transmuting this pain into the light, from pain into purpose. And that video was probably the first time that I really shared with anyone the struggles that I was going through and it was cathartic. In a way it was a relief. There was some catharsis and from there there wasn't many people that watched that video. I didn't have a following. There was probably like five people that watched it.
Speaker 1:The following videos, the subsequent videos as I kept doing more lives, as I kept sharing on Facebook. I kept sharing my struggles and I kept sharing what I was doing to overcome those struggles. And I talked about the steps that I took the meditation, the workout, the journaling, the hiring a mentor, these things. I would share these with my Facebook community. And the community started to grow and it continued to grow.
Speaker 1:And then I was coaching people and then I was being invited to, you know, on stages, all because I started sharing the reality of what was happening in my life and I started getting real raw, honest and transparent with people, and you know what? There's a lot of people in the world who only show you the good that's happening in their life and it's easy to fall into the comparison trap. When you're going through struggles and challenges, it's really easy to go through the comparison trap where you're looking at someone's front office and you're comparing it to your back office. And that's what happens when somebody shares. Only their light is they're showing you their front office, you're comparing it to your back office and you feel like there's something wrong with you, even though that person probably since they're scared to share who they really are they probably have a more cluttered and a dirtier back office than you do.
Speaker 1:So I started making a living on sharing the reality of what I was going through and the darkness that I was transcending on a daily basis when I teach, and recently I've been talking a lot about you don't need to earn and you don't need to deserve that you. Maybe you take a little action in the world to unlock what you want, but to me, the word deserve and the word earn means that there's almost like a self-worth gap, there's a self-esteem gap, there's a sacrifice gap that you haven't that you haven't closed those gaps, that gap you haven't closed it and by, by struggling enough, by suffering enough, by toiling enough, by, by stressing enough, you'll, you'll close that gap and then you can say, okay, I've earned it, now I deserve it. But until you feel like you've earned it, it's hard to really step into it, because if you feel like you need to earn and deserve, it's like your heart isn't open to receiving yet. It's like your heart isn't open to receiving yet. You keep your heart closed and you don't let the goodness in because you still have some suffering to do, you still have some punishment to give yourself. And recently, in workshops and in my mastermind and in the four-week virtual container that I'm running the program I'm running right now, winning the Inner Game of Wealth I've been talking a lot about not needing to earn or deserve, and I could say that most people would call me a hypocrite at this point and I'm going to share why All coaching is.
Speaker 1:When you boil coaching down to its primary elements, it's the rudiment of what coaching is and what training and teaching is. What having a, what a mentor does, is. Everybody puts themselves in boxes and likely seals up the box. We create our own prison, the box. We create our own prison. And when we have the right allies in our life, the directions of how to get out of that box are written on the outside of the box and that ally just reads those instructions to us and from reading those instructions inside the box we can take the appropriate action, generate the appropriate responses and get out of the box. But we put ourselves in that box and it's up to us to get out of the box. The guide, the mentor, the teacher, the coach can only read the instructions. That's it. The guide, the mentor, the coach, your influencer, the person that's helping you. They can only read the instructions. They can't actually do the work for you. And we all need these folks in our life or we'll stay smaller than we need to be. Here's the hypocritical part, which I'm going to tell you why it's really not hypocritical, but why I'm sharing this with you, because I want to share the shit as well as share the goodness.
Speaker 1:My wife carries a lot of responsibility and a lot of burden in this family and she makes sure. You know, our older daughter is graduating from college this year and she's organizing, you know, parties and graduation and cap and gown and, you know, getting the right people to go and celebrate with us. She's making those plans. She's running a real estate investment business. She's walking properties every week. Her and her business partner are making offers. They're doing a lot in their real estate investing business. She also collaborates inside of the Interwealthalth Mastermind. She shows up on Inner Wealth community calls. She plans all of our retreats and intensives to make sure that we have great spaces and that they're set up properly and that we have a great physical container for coaching and for sharing and for release. She does all these things. She makes sure that our cars' oils change. She makes sure that we have health insurance. She does so. So so many things for this family and I don't have a whole lot of responsibility except to build and grow this business and serve powerfully and make sure that I'm making a proper impact in the world with my gifts and my talents, and I'm very, very blessed that my wife sees my talents and sees my gifts in the world that I possess and influences me, inspires me, encourages me to share these things with the world.
Speaker 1:Interwealth Global has a mission of raising the level of global consciousness and we do that by getting one person at a time to let go of some limitation. And every time anyone any one of us lets go of a little bit of limitation, the level of global consciousness increases, and I'm not over-exaggerating this. Whenever somebody's consciousness increases, the level of global consciousness increases. So every time I invite someone to let go of a little bit of a limitation, a belief, a perspective, a false thought, a disempowered mindset, a disempowered heart set, every time I help someone, I challenge someone, I invite someone to fall a little deeper in love with themselves, it literally is having a global impact and we're raising the level of global consciousness and if we all continue to do this, this will be a different world in a few years. My wife understands my mission in the world and the impact I make and she creates space and creates a container. That sometimes makes me. It makes me feel a little freaking, shameful and guilty that she carries all this burden and load and I don't have as much burden and load in my life I've got.
Speaker 1:My primary responsibility is to make sure that we're growing the business, that we're growing our mission, that we're growing our impact in the world and we are having a massive impact, but we're also running a business. Interwealth Global is a business. See, I don't have a job. This is my job. I don't have various streams of revenue. Interwealth Global is our primary stream of revenue and I am responsible in my family to make sure that I am generating business growth and that I am generating growth in our mastermind, in our community, in our workshops, in our coaching programs, in our containers, so that not only are we growing the impact, but that our family has the quality of life that we desire and that we have created a vision for. And that's kind of my singular focus Now. I do some laundry and I go to the grocery store and I pay some bills, and my wife also pays some bills, but I do some cooking and I do some of these things, but my primary responsibility is to make sure the family has the financial wherewithal that we need to carry out our vision, to live our vision.
Speaker 1:Now, recently my wife came up to me and I'm a very, very affectionate guy. I love being touched, I love hugging I at our mastermind, when we go on retreats and intensives, we hug in and out. I love, I've always loved, being touched. You know I'm not talking about sexually, I'm just talking about, you know, physically, embraces and and just making sure that you know that my primary love language is touch, sure that you know that my primary love language is touch. And I remember in first grade running into my first grade teacher's desk, grabbing her and hugging her so tight it's like after a while she had to, like, fight the breakout because I love, I love physical contact and I also have a healthy sexual relationship with my wife and I'm a very sexually driven man and sometimes it's hard for her, for her to keep up and sometimes, sometimes you know, I could be a little overwhelming, let's just say that.
Speaker 1:And recently she's come up to me and she said Mike, listen, I've got a lot on my plate and I've got a lot going on and I initiate, like all the admin things that we have going on in our life, that we need to keep things moving forward in the material world. And I got my business and she started sharing all these things. She said you've backed off physically and both with non-sexual contact and sexual contact. And you know I can't initiate everything and I can see some tears in her eyes, everything and I can see some tears in her eyes. I can't initiate everything all the time and in that moment I think she thought I was going to defend and I said you know what You're right? You're right.
Speaker 1:I have been absolutely 100% focused on this business because we are down tremendously year over year. We are, the impact that we're making is still strong but the number of people that we're teaching within our containers, although still at a nice level, they've decreased dramatically and that has had an impact on our income and our wealth building mechanisms and we rely on the income and wealth building mechanisms so we can live the quality of life that we want. And I have been laser freaking, focused in, in some cases ignoring my wife from an affection standpoint she's not as affectionate as I am and at my expense. The sexual contact and I had to admit, you're right, the last few weeks and we're talking about the few weeks the last few weeks I have been completely disconnected from you, not emotionally, but that level of physical connection that's healthy for a marriage, for a relationship. And when I told her she was right, we had a really, really nice embrace and I got up from that and I was already in my running clothes, I was getting ready to go for a five miler and I asked for forgiveness and told her I love her and that I still cherish her beyond anything and I love her and we're deeply connected and we're deeply bonded. I asked for forgiveness and she said there's nothing to forgive. We're still in lockstep.
Speaker 1:I went for my run and while I was on my run, I pondered what had just transpired and what I'll share, what I can share. That sounds hypocritical, but I'm going to unpack this. What sounds hypocritical is that since the business is down and since the income is down and since the wealth generation, the mechanism to generate wealth, is down, I haven't felt like I've earned or deserved her love. I haven't felt like I earned or deserved being touched. I haven't felt like I earned or deserved having a healthy sexual relationship with my wife.
Speaker 1:And when I landed on this, it was kind of like and I'm doing the mind blown thing it was like mind blowing that this was so easy, is so easy to see in other people, it is so easy to see in my choose your destiny, live intensive. When I was working directly with someone in the audience or in the group, I was working directly with them and it was so obvious that they held themselves to a standard. They needed to do so much to deserve, to be okay and they needed to earn and that earning could only come through stress and struggle. It's so easy to see that in other people. It was a struggle to see it within me, and all coaching is is we put ourselves in a box and the directions are written outside the box and the person outside the box reads them to us and we get to let ourselves out of the box. And in that moment, when my wife held up that mirror, she was basically reading the instructions of how to get out of the box and all I had to do was take the action, put the pieces together, just did some quick thought and connection and understanding the puts and takes of what had transpired and why, if I'm such an affectionate, affectionately driven guy and a sexually driven guy, why, you know why I have disconnected and it was pretty easy for me in that moment to back into wow, I still feel like I need to earn it, deserve it. And as soon as I get the business at a place where, where we can, we can have that quality of life that we want, then I'll have earned and deserve her life or her love. And I came home and I gave her an embrace and I told her what I had learned. And there's a new level of power, a new level of insight inside the Kitco home. There's a new level of power, there's a new level of insight inside of me. Now, why is this not hypocritical?
Speaker 1:I served five years in the United States Marine Corps and although none of that was in combat, everyone goes through combat training and one of the key elements of combat training is they say listen, we're going to put together an awesome plan, battle plan, before we step foot onto the battlefield. But understand that it's not uncommon that when the first shots are fired, the plan goes to shit and that's because of the fog of war. All battle plans become less clear and less understood as soon as the shots start being fired. As soon as there's a little bit of smoke on the battlefield, everything becomes more confusing. As stress goes up, as anxiety goes up, then the clarity and the understanding of the battle plan starts to become shaky. And this is why military discipline is so important and this is why in the Marine Corps they stress you out so much is so that they create conditions where you're under stress and you're under duress but you still have to maintain some military bearing, because there will be stress in our minds. Mike Tyson said it Everybody has a great plan until they get hit in the face, right, until they get punched in the face.
Speaker 1:Although this could sound hypocritical, and in some sense it is, what really happened is when I got caught in the confusion and the fog of life, the fog of the stress of and the discomfort of the business and being able to making sure that the one major responsibility I have in this family, that I'm actually productive in that one responsibility. Then the story started flying in my mind and body about the fact that I needed to earn and deserve the love that I wanted for my wife and although it felt true internally, it's not a true statement. I never needed to earn or deserve the love of my wife. If you need to earn or deserve the love of your wife or your spouse, then you might want to reconsider who you're married to, because the love of my spouse isn't conditional. It's not conditional upon money or business or how I show up or how much impact I'm making my spouse, my bride. She loves me, not the output of my work or the input of my work, although all of that's nice and the business and money and the success. Although all of these are nice, they are not mechanisms that determine if I've earned or deserve anything.
Speaker 1:It's easy for me to teach other people that they don't need to earn and deserve, but sometimes we get trapped in our own stories and we don't even see that we're living in them. We're living in, through them, and this is why the Buddhists say if we all sat around a campfire all 8 billion of us and told our deepest, darkest stories, we'd all laugh at each other out of lack of originality. Because just because I can teach it doesn't mean that I'm absolved of it and free of it, and this is why we all need allies in this world. Guys, I hope this is making sense. I hope this has been helpful for you. I hope you're starting to see, not just in the stories I'm telling about my life, but maybe how it's true for you.
Speaker 1:Where are you acting?
Speaker 1:To try to feel like you earned, that you have earned or deserve something, whether it be in your relationships, whether it be in your business, whether it be in your wealth, whether it be in the love of your children.
Speaker 1:You buy gifts for your kids so that you can feel like you deserve their love. Look at where these things are showing up for you and when you see them, allow them, embrace them and let that shit go, because it's not serving you. And then the next time the same thing happens, allow it, embrace it and let that shit go, but I guarantee you that next time it's going to be a lot less than the first time. And then the next time it happens, allow it, embrace it and let that shit go, but I bet you the third time there's going to be a whole lot less of it than the second time. And lather, rinse, repeat for the rest of your life. But every time you see it, every time you experience it, it all comes back to let that shit go. Grow in your power and show up as the more powerful, impactful, loving and worthy and deserving human being that you really are at your core. If you enjoyed what you heard and you want to learn more, go to wwwinnerwealthglobalcom for more tools and resources.