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
Ep219. When Your Identity and Reality Don’t Match — A Lesson in Embarrassment and Surrender.
In this episode, Mike gets brutally honest about the current season of life and business — and what it feels like when things aren’t clicking like they used to. With vulnerable reflection and zero ego protection, he shares how embarrassment surfaced, what it revealed about identity, and why surrendering to reality is the path to true peace. If you’ve ever been caught between who you thought you were and what life is actually showing you… this one’s for you.
Key Takeaways
- Teach From Messiness, Not Mastery
Real leadership is built in honesty. Vulnerability liberates the teacher and the listener. - Embarrassment Is a Signal — Not a Shame
When you feel embarrassment, it's pointing to a false identity you’ve been clinging to. - Identity Is Not Reality
Building a self-concept around outcomes is a trap — especially when those outcomes change. - There Is No Winning a War With the Present Moment
Resistance creates suffering. Surrender creates peace, joy, and integrity. - You Don’t Need It to Be Bigger — You Need It to Be Real
The soul doesn’t want quantity. It wants honesty, alignment, and service.
Notable Quotes
- “You know, I like to say that I teach from messiness, not mastery.”
- “Embarrassment is this disconnect between your reality and your identity.”
- “In a battle between identity and reality, we can either keep doubling and tripling down on trying to make reality look like this identity we’ve built… or we get to let go of the identity.”
- “There’s a saying that a truly humble human being cannot be embarrassed.”
- “Please understand, at this point, I don’t have everything figured out — and that’s why I teach from messiness and not mastery.”
Call to Action
🧘♂️ Monkify Your Money Game — 5-Week Nervous System Training
Live virtual intensive — Already in motion, but you can still join.
Join the experience by clicking here!
📘 Inner World, Outer World — The Book
Amazon bestseller. Life-changer. Straight talk on nervous system and soul.
Order your copy here!
🎤 Gateway to Freedom — Mike’s Speaking Event this weekend!
Mike closes out the event with truth, fire, and nervous system liberation. Check out the details here!
Music Credit: "What's Left of Me" by Wes Hoffman & Friends
My Social Media:
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mike_kitko
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mikekitko
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 interna
You ever wake up feeling like there's something missing in your life? You ever feel the need to escape your business? Are you running your life or is your life running me? I might get you want to 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, accept some freedom from the inside out. Welcome to the Inner Wealth Podcast, where we learn and choose to live inspired each and every day. You know, I like to say that I teach from messiness, not mastery. And what I mean by that is I very often I'll share exactly the um the mess, the inner inner challenge, the challenges, the obstacles that I'm working through. So that for a couple of reasons. One is it liberates me and and helps me like express this stuff that's happening. It's almost like a an audio diary. But also, I do believe there's a deeper truth and a deeper meaning. It's that when when somebody shares their their challenges from a place of vulnerability and rawness and honesty, it literally helps everyone else feel more normal, feel more valuable, feel more worthy, because it invites other people to uh to see themselves as a an imperfect, uh, perfect creation, just like everybody else. See, we we are all imperfectly perfect, all right? And we do have challenges and we do have obstacles, and no one has it all figured out. No one ever will have it all figured out. And as soon as I like to say, you know, dot my one of my uh favorite spiritual teachers is Dr. Wayne Dyer, and he says, as soon as there's nothing more for you to learn, and there's no additional challenges or obstacles in this world for you to navigate, to learn, to integrate, then you will turn into pixie dust. Like literally, the reason for your life goes away, it vanishes. And I love that. I love that. What it what it helps us do is look at other people and say, as long as they're in a meat suit, as long as they're as long as they're breathing, then they're facing challenges too. It's not just me. And when we when we share our messiness, when we share our messiness, it helps everyone else both learn from our challenges and obstacles, and we get to teach from that perspective, but it helps bring us all together and unite us and unify us and help other people trust each other and trust themselves. Trust themselves. So um today I'm gonna teach from a messy place, some messiness that I'm experiencing right now. And this has been going on for a few months. All right. There was a time a few years ago, the inner wealth mastermind it built pretty quickly. It built steadily, it built quickly. I was having these workshops. I was what I would do is I would set up a uh a workshop, a two-day choose your destiny live intensive. And there were a lot of eyes on me in the world, and my my uh my following was growing regularly because I was showing up on more stages. And the season of my life was just things were clicking, all right? Things were clicking. I would I would get invited to speak on people's stages from there. I would invite them to the choose your destiny live intensive, or they would connect with me on Facebook or or on socials, and I'd make a post, and then from that post, I would invite people into the choose your destiny live intensive. And people would show up. And when when we were at the intensive, the the people got so enamored with the work and the energy of the room that they jumped into mastermind, and the mastermind grew quickly. All right, things were just clicking, like, and I'm snapping my fingers. If you can't hear that, I know if you're watching this on video, you're you're seeing it, but it things were just clicking. It was like all systems were just go. That was the season of my life, all right. And we all know that seasons change. Now, I'm in a different season, and that season is yet to be named, that season is yet to be identified fully, but I could say that things just aren't, they're not building as quickly. There, there's not the momentum in business that I used to have. And I know all the hustle whores and grind gurus will say, just work harder, work harder. But listen, I'm doing all the things and the momentum is just not there. I'm still recording the podcast episodes. I'm still I got a speaking engagement this week. I uh gateway to freedom, by the way, g2free.com. If you want, if you want information about that, that uh that event, g2free.com. Come see me. There's a two-day real estate investing uh event, and I'm the final speaker of the second day. But anyway, so still speaking engagements, still podcast episodes, still holding workshops. It's just things aren't flowing as quickly and as easily as they as they were. Now, am I confident that at one day at some point they will again? Yes, I am, because seasons exist. Seasons of of fast, seasons of slow, seasons of build, seasons of dissolve, different seasons happen. Life is not linear. When we expect everything to be linear all the time, we're gonna be disappointed uh over 50% of the time, probably. But right now I'm in a season where things aren't building as as quickly. And a few weeks ago, I launched uh the Monkify Your Money game. I had a great episode on here, I believe it was episode 214 where I explained to five financial archetypes, and I launched the Monkefy Your Money Game Live Intensive. It's a five week, uh, five-week virtual experience, actually not a live intensive, but a virtual experience, five weeks, powerful teaching, powerful training. And I've done these same containers before, most of them four weeks, but these same containers and got you know 20 people, 15 to 20 people to register for the for the the the training, and it was awesome and it was it was valuable and it was impactful. The Innerwealth Global made some money on the front end. We also had some additional followers you know look at us, uh look at us in in our mastermind and and and in choose your destiny uh live intensive. So things things really clicked and things went well within the the virtual containers. And I launched the Monkefy Your Money game. Now, listen, to be honest, just for full transparency, we we've only got four people to register right now. And the Monkify Your Money game starts Monday, October 13th. So it's just around the corner. But to try to get more eyes on Monkify Your Money Game, the container, the live intensive or the virtual intensive, I launched Monkefy Your Money Game, the webinar. And that is actually that is actually today. And by the time you listen to this, that webinar will have already been over. Okay, because this webinar will will law, or this episode will launch the 9th, and today is the 8th. So the webinar is actually tonight. But there's 11 people that have registered for Monkana, Monkefy your your uh money game webinar. So I used to get 40, 50 people to register for a webinar. Now the the vulnerability, the honesty that I would love to share, the messiness that I would love to share, like frankly, I've been a little embarrassed. I've been a little embarrassed. And I thought about canceling the webinar, I thought about canceling the event because there was part of me that was embarrassed. And what I love is I love this work and I love getting inside and understanding when these things come up, when this resistance comes up, when the embarrassment comes up, when the when the shame comes up, when the fear comes up, when the anxiety, because it still shows up in me, right? We're all messy human beings and we all have this messiness to clean up. If as soon as the messiness is done, then you'll turn into pixie dust. But started really reflecting to try to understand where the embarrassment was coming in that was creating this thought, this idea to cancel these two containers, where there's actually people that are enrolled. And and here's what I came up with. Embarrassment is it's shame. Embarrassment is this connect disconnect, not this connect, the disconnect between your reality and your identity. Part of me that's still identified with that guy in the season where everything clicked, everything built, and everything came pretty easily and naturally. And I was still identified as that guy. I actually built an identity on that guy, on those circumstances, on those outcomes. I talk about how I've let go of the identity of an imposter. I've let go of the identity of someone who's broken. I've let go of the identity of you know, of the old toxic, abusive father and husband that I used to be. I've let go of these identities. But what this embarrassment has helped me realize is that I just built a new identity based on success, based on outcomes, based on things that happened outside of me. And years into my coaching business, I built this identity after when things started really clicking, I built this identity on the circumstances that were happening in my life and the outcomes that were that were there. And that is a false identity based on based on an identity, not reality. The reality is in this season, at this moment, at this juncture in the life of Mike Kitko, things obviously haven't meant to click as easily, as effortlessly, and as yeah, just as quickly as they did at that time. And I've had seasons that things built quickly. This isn't the first, this isn't the only season that I had where things built quickly, but this is just the latest. And in a in a cyclical pattern of life, I got attached to one of the high peaks, one of the high points, and I built, I built a a new identity of who Mike Kiko is based on that that data point, that period of time. I hope this is making sense. That maybe it was reality then, but it is not reality now. And that's where the shame kicked in, that's where the embarrassment kicked in, because there is a there's a gap and there's a disconnect between my identity and reality. And in an in a battle, in a in a conflict between identity and reality, we can either keep doubling and tripling down on trying to make reality look like this identity we've built, or we get to let go of the identity and stay true, stay authentic, stay aligned, stay in flow, and surrender to the present moment instead of trying to recreate the world and make the world and control the world and manipulate the world and bend the world into a reality that reflects our identity instead of letting go of the identity that has created the conflict with reality. And this is this is like some Eckhart Tole work. This is when he talks about becoming present and surrendering to the present moment. This is what Eckert Tole is talking about. And the embarrassment that I've been experiencing, that I've experienced, is just it's a it's a signal flare. It's a signal flare that that has arrived to, you know, that's in my body that I've felt and that I've experienced. It's a signal flare saying, hey, there's something out of alignment with who we identify as and what reality really is at this current juncture in our life. And this creates resistance to the present moment. So the embarrassment was the signal that I was resisting the present moment instead of surrendering to it and honoring it, which creates joy, which creates peace, which creates liberation. Now listen, this is this isn't to say that that we just give up, that we just stop, that we just stop taking action, that we just stop looking to influence higher-level circumstances. That's not to say that. And in this moment, in this season, where reality is showing me that maybe it's time to slow down, maybe it's time to to throttle down a little bit, maybe it's time to to build a different self-concept, maybe it's time to learn how to surrender to the present moment. Maybe it's maybe it's time to let go of some unhealthy pride. Maybe it's time to realize that my identity is not as I see it and as it's been built. But maybe maybe I'm I'm learning that reality is my identity, not this false narrative, this false concept that I've built inside of my mind and my body. Now, the nervous system, and this has been week after week that I've been doing episodes on the nervous system. The nervous system is giving me signals of fight, flight, or freeze that there's danger, or I'm gonna be seen as weak, or I'm gonna be exposed, or what are they gonna think of me? And is maybe the the nervous system is trying to fear judgment or trying to avoid judgment. But I I get to I get to let all of that go and surrender to reality instead of instead of try to protect these things and do things that probably frankly would be dishonest in terms of in terms of just quitting. Not as much dishonest, but out of integrity with who I am, with my core values, and with with who I decided to be in any given moment. Listen, by the time you you read, or by the time you watch or listen to this episode, the webinar will already have been gone. It would already been executed, and the next thing in my life will be Gateway to Freedom on Sunday and the Monkefy Your Money Game Five-week live intensive on Monday. But in both of these, there's one thing I can commit to you. I'm going to be in integrity, I'm going to be honest, vulnerable, and real, and not try to protect the nervous system that's telling me that there's false danger, that fears judgment, and that fears being seen differently than I really am. And what I am is I live, I am a lover of reality, and I'm a lover of living in reality in a state of freedom. And in order to do that, I gotta let go of any resistance to the present moment perfection and and this concept that things always need to be the way be the way I want them to be. We can stay true to the the vision that we've created, but we do not have to fight the present moment in order to make that vision come true in the season that it's meant to come true. And in a battle between my vision and reality in the present moment, there's only joy in reality in the present moment. I hope this is making sense. That's what I commit to you. When I launch something like this, when I launch something like Monkify Your Money Game, the webinar or the live intensive, I'm going to show up to teach and train whoever shows up. That's my commitment to you. But please understand at this point, I don't have everything figured out. And that's why I teach from messiness and not mastery. I hope this episode has helped you let go of a self-concept that is fighting the present moment. And I helped, I hope it's helped you feel a little more normal in your skin as we all live some sort of messiness. But some people and most people are just trying to protect that messiness and just show up as masters. I love you guys. Thanks for listening. Thanks for your ongoing support in this uh on this podcast. And I continue, I'll continue to double down and triple down on integrity and showing up real, raw, vulnerable, and always being honest about where I am. Right now, this season, I'm being taught to accept and surrender, not to just keep growing in my outcomes and circumstances.com for more tools and resources.