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
Ep222. Healthy Selfishness — Rewiring Your Nervous System to Deserve, Expect, and Receive.
In this episode, Mike returns to the foundational — but rarely mastered — concept of Healthy Selfishness. He shares how giving without receiving leads to depletion, why most people are unconsciously afraid to receive, and how deserving, expecting, and receiving are actually nervous system conditions — not mindset problems. This episode is a permission slip to stop playing martyr, start playing big, and rewire your body for reciprocity, worthiness, and overflow.
Key Takeaways
- You Are Not the Meat Suit — You Are the Awareness Navigating It
Understanding this distinction is the beginning of every transformation. - The Nervous System Is Wired for Familiarity, Not Fulfillment
If you're conditioned to overgive, you’ll feel unsafe receiving until your body is reconditioned. - Selfishness Is Just a Triggered Word — Not a Truth
What we call “selfish” is often just healthy boundaries and energetic reciprocity. - Deservedness, Expectation, and Receptivity Are Somatic
You can’t out-think these — you have to feel and rewire them in the body. - You Were Built to Give — Now It’s Time to Learn to Receive
Until you receive, your giving will always have a ceiling… and an expiration.
Notable Quotes
- “The greatest lie ever perpetuated in human history is that it’s better to give than receive.”
- “For almost my whole life, I was living as if these beliefs were true.”
- “Your nervous system has one task and one task only — and that’s to keep you alive.”
- “The limitation of our expectation is what we do feel that we do deserve.”
- “I deserve what I want. I expect what I want. I receive what I want — because I’m worth what I want.”
Call to Action
📥 Want to work on this?
If you’re bumping into the ceiling of what you feel you deserve, expect, or can receive — there’s nervous system work to do.
📩 Email Mike: mike@innerwealthglobal.com
🌐 Visit: www.innerwealthglobal.com
📘 Inner World, Outer World – Still lighting people up on Amazon
Grab the book. Rewire your reality.
👉 Order Now
🎧 Feel selfish asking for what you want? You’re not alone — and you’re not broken.
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.
You ever wake up feeling like there's something missing in your money? You ever feel the need to escape your business? Are you running your money or is your money running? I might be a lot of something creating a mic so authentic in the mind with who you really are. You'll get excited just to wake up. I'll help you create real wealth and get some freedom from the inside out. Welcome to the Inner Wealth Podcast, where we learn and choose to live inspired each and every day. As I evolve in my awareness and as I as my level of consciousness increases, I have more to share on this podcast and in my content, but I also have a deeper share to provide and to uh to get out in the world and share with you. What I mean by that is sometimes I cover the same topics, but I cover them at a deeper level of awareness and a deepening level of understanding from my point of view, from my level of consciousness, the new new level of consciousness and a new ability to not just share it, but to it to impact the audience in a different way. And maybe to maybe to untwist the pretzel a little bit in people's minds and in their bodies, and to help you understand and actually apply some of this stuff. So in episode 107, I covered, uh I introduced a concept called healthy selfishness. Now, selfishness has been something that I've battled with my whole life. And it's not that I've battled with being selfish, it's I've battled with trying to avoid feeling selfish and trying to avoid being selfish. So if you've listened to enough podcast episodes, you know that that our state of being, when we're unconscious, when we're asleep, when we're not awake, when we're not uh understanding, when we're not diving in, when we're not doing the internal work, when we're not observing what's happening in our mind and body, we live from just a state of conditioning and programming of the world. So our our parents, our teachers, our pastors, our family, our friends typically determine before you know age zero to seven, help us. I'll use the word help, uh cause and inspire some sense of conditioning and programming. And this shapes the reality and this shapes the world that we not just live in, but that the world that we see, because all possibilities exist, all right, infinite possibilities. But we all see the world through our programs, our conditioning, our stories, our beliefs, our perspective. It's like our little lens of what aspect of the world that we're gonna see and how we're gonna see the world. And other people see it differently, but you're gonna see it through your lens and your nervous system. I've been talking about the nervous system a lot, and that's where your nervous system, that's where your beliefs and your expectations and your stories, and you know, that's where your worldview lives. It's in your nervous system. And then you you traverse the world to not bump up against the pain in the nervous system, but do to get that next dopamine hit in the in the nervous system. And that's the unconscious, very unconscious way of living is to avoid pain and to experience pleasure. But when when you open up your eyes and you attain a higher level of consciousness, as you start becoming conscious, you see that you are not your nervous system. You are not the meat suit, you are the awareness that is moving around in this meat suit. And your meat suit is made up of a nervous system with a whole bunch of organs that keep it alive. And that nervous system with a whole bunch of organs that keep it alive, that is the vehicle that you have to move around in the world. And and you know, this is the image that I like to portray the difference between the uh awareness and the meat suit is that if you're going to the grocery store, you walk out your front door, you get into your car, and you drive to the grocery store. And then in the parking lot, you park the car, you get out, and you go in the grocery store. You, in that scenario, you are the driver, and the car is the meat suit. The awareness that's you, the awareness you is the driver, and the meat suit is the car. And we navigate the world and we move in this meat suit. This awareness moves in this meat suit, and all the meat suit is is a vehicle. But the meat suit contains a lot of safety mechanisms. And these safety mechanisms, think about it in a car that that maybe tells you you're too close to other cars uh without really you being too close to other cars. It's just too sensitive. Your nervous system triggers uh or signals, uh triggers and dang signals and triggers danger where danger doesn't exist. It triggers threats where threats don't exist. And all this is is when it when it you have records in your nervous system, records of the past where past pain, where you experience past pain, your your nervous system is trying to keep you from experiencing that same pain. So it'll try to keep you out of those same experiences because it predicts the future based on the past. And if it experienced pain in a certain place in the past, then it's going to try to keep you. Your nervous system is going to try to keep you from experiencing that same pain in experiences that it predicts that are likely just like the ones in the past. And your nervous system floods you with chemicals and floods you with hormones. Either they're either they're happy hormones that move you forward, or maybe they're painful hormones and lower level hormones that that pull you back and try to get you to stop and try to try to get you to not advance because it it's just trying to protect you. Your nervous system has one task and one task only, one reason for being, and that's to keep you alive. And it keeps you alive by keeping you in familiar circumstances because it knows how to operate there. Hopefully, you've listened to the last few episodes where I repeat that over and over and over. Your nervous system has the only task is the only task with keeping you alive. It does that by keeping you in familiar circumstances, and it keeps you in familiar circumstances so it can keep you alive because it knows how to keep you alive in those circumstances. But anything that's new, anything that's painful, it can't be sure of that. So it tries to keep you out of those situations. Now, why am I talking about the nervous system again? Because I'm going to talk about it probably every episode for the rest of the Interwealth podcast, because it is so important to understand the workings of the nervous system because you are the awareness, you're not the meat suit. If you identify as the meat suit, you will live a very, very small, painful life. If you identify as the awareness that has that is traversing the world through this meat suit, then you can start to create some separation and some identity relief from the pain that's trapped in your nervous system from the discomfort that's in there. And when you start to create that separation, we can start to do something different with it. And we can start to heal it and empty the body of that pain, empty the body of those lower level beliefs, empty the body of those lower level stories, and empty the body of those lower level awarenesses that happened in the past that are predicting a future just like the past. Now, I'm gonna bring it back to healthy selfishness. I've for my whole life, I've been a great, great giver. And now the the more I share this, this simple concept in rooms, when I'm teaching in uh in when I have you know courses and when I have containers, teaching containers, the more I share this, the the more head nods, positive head nods I get. So I think this is this is some things that the the collective consciousness is starting to wake up to. I I have an easy time giving. It's so easy to give, but to receive has been a challenge in my life. And I've overserved friends, I've overserved uh customers, I've overserved my family, I've overserved everybody. I've overserved people that serve me in no way, shape, or form. I give to people just because they asked. And that asking, there was there was something deep buried, deep inside of me that triggered danger or selfishness if I didn't give just because somebody asked or somebody expected. For instance, I just had in many times, you know, I've I've been in this coaching world for about nine years now, and many, many times somebody calls, texts, messages me, and said, Hey, Mike, I'd like to pick your brain. Can we jump on a call for a few minutes? Now, they have no expectations of working with me. They have no expectations of of benefiting my business, they have no expectations of being part of my mission of Inner Wealth Global. They they just want their problem solved and they have my best interest. They they have they do not have my best interest in mind at all. And it's happened over and over and over and over. And there was a guy years and years ago, where about five or six times he asked if he could pick my brain. I said yes. And the last time I just said, Where do I send the invoice? And I never heard from him again. Now I felt selfish as fuck when I sent that message. I felt some shame. I felt selfish, I felt a sense of guilt because I was built to give. And I was bumping up against this nervous system block that I had that not giving when somebody asked was selfish. Even though this person did not have my best interest in mind at all. And what I've learned to do over the course of years, and I just had I just got an opportunity to do this again, is when somebody I got a message. Hey, Mike, can I can I pick your brain? Got this thing that I'm working on. Can I pick your brain? And I said, Hey, that sounds painful. I learned that from my friend Jesse Elder, not my friend, but the guy that I admire. Let's say I don't, I'm not friends with him. I'd love to be friends with him, but I don't know him. But he said, You uh can I pick your brain? And I said, That sounds painful, but I've got this workshop coming up November 14th and 15th, and I'd love to jam with you at the workshop. And I sent him the link to the workshop. No, we'll see if he registers. Maybe he will. Maybe I'll see him there. But likely, if he doesn't, he wanted the answer to his problem for free. And he really didn't have my best interest in mind. He didn't, he wasn't a he wasn't a giver, he was a receiver, but and I like to call receivers who don't give, I like to call them takers, but he was a taker that didn't want to benefit me in a way that that I am open to be benefited with in terms of my business. I am a coach, so when I'm coaching, should be paid and compensated for my coaching. Pretty simple. It's pretty simple. I'm a coach and and I do teach and I do inspire people and I do get them in my containers and I help them so they benefit from my work. And in the way that I give, if somebody wants that, it's pretty typical to expect the reciprocity to come in the way that the business is set up to be reciprocated. Now, that hasn't always been an easy concept for me because thinking about that, feeling that, connecting with that, again, it triggered that shame. It triggered that guilt, it triggered that that pain, that suffering inside that told me I was selfish. And I didn't want to feel or to appear selfish. So I would, I would let people violate either my lack of boundaries or my boundaries that were, that were not really steady, that were not really firm. And I'm not saying they are bad people. They just they've only done what I allowed them to do. But because of that feeling of shame, because that feeling of selfishness, because I was afraid to be seen as selfish, I would bend my life for everyone else's benefit at my expense. Now, I've been working on this for a long, long time. A long time. And I do a lot of meditative work and it's working. The energy is shifting in my nervous system. The energy is shifting. I can see it. I expect people to show up differently, so they do. I I expect people to provide value to me, and they do. I expect people to pay for for lunch. That was a hard one for a long time. When I'd go out to lunch with my friends, I always paid. They didn't ask me to do that. I just did it because I was a giver, not a not a receiver. But now expecting people to pay and to actually add value to my life when I'm adding value, value to theirs. And, you know, these things weren't always innately natural and didn't always feel good to me. Because inside of my nervous system, I was built to give and to not receive. And the greatest lie ever perpetuated in human history is that it's better to give than receive. It's not, they're equal. If we don't learn how to receive, and this is nervous system stuff, if we don't learn how to receive, then we're going to be a massive giver and we're going to be a depleted giver, because that's all we'll ever be. A depleted giver with nothing left to give. So we must learn how to receive. And this requires what I like to call a healthy form of selfishness. Now, when I started doing some really deep dives and deep work into why do I feel selfish when I ask for reciprocity? And the underlying belief, the underlying story that was buried under layers and layers of this internal suffering, this internal pain, this conditioning, this programming, this samscars. If you've read Inner World, Outer World, or any other like Michael Singer book, some scars that were buried deep inside of me, underneath of all those, was this belief that in order for me to receive, someone needs to suffer. Someone has to experience pain for me to receive. So every time I felt selfish, it was the trigger that I thought that my body felt like I had just hurt somebody. And none of this shit's true. None of it. These are just buried beliefs, buried programming, buried conditioning. And unconsciously, for almost my whole life, I was living as if these beliefs were true. So I would avoid certain things and I would say yes to certain things, I would say no to certain things that would keep me between this, it keep me in this comfort zone of not feeling selfish or not feeling like someone was seeing me as selfish, or trying not to hurt somebody by asking for what I wanted, which is reciprocity, value for value. Honor honor my business, honor me, honor my teachings, honor my value, honor my family. Because every time I teach, it's time away from my family. Every time I'm on a call, every time I'm on a in a in a training, it's time away from my family. So you're honoring that. You're honoring that distance that I'm creating between me and the people that I love and me and the other things that I love in this life. Opportunity cost. I can either be with my wife, which I love, or I could be with you on a call. And the cost, the price of being away from my wife is X, Y, Z, yes or no. Very simple, not easy, always, especially when we're built to be a giver and we struggle to receive. It's not always easy to express that level of value and to expect that level of value and to receive that level of value until we practice a sense of healthy selfishness. And what this requires is elevating our level of deservedness, expectation, and receptivity in the world. Three of my favorite words. Elevate our level of deservedness, expectation, and receptivity. For a while, it takes pegging it the other way in order to compensate the energies of giving and receiving. And that's just a belief. I'm a natural giver, and I'll never ever not be a great giver. But now it is time for me to become a great receiver. And we do this through healthy selfishness. I've got this app, this meditation app, and uh it allows you to put in your these affirmations, write in these affirmations, and then record those affirmations in your own voice. And then it when you hit play, it puts your voice and these affirmations over top of music, and it just keeps repeating them and repeating them and repeating them. And what I'm doing with this, and what I've been doing with this for quite some time now, this is what's shifting the energy in my body, moving it from let's not be selfish to let's practice healthy selfishness. What's moving the energy of my body is as each affirmation comes up, I feel, I feel the deservedness, I feel the expectation, I feel the receptivity of the affirmation, of physical, physical pleasure from my wife, and of my uh closest tribe serving me just like I serve them, of my students, of my students admiring me and admiring the work that I do with them, of people honoring the value of my business. I deserve people to value to honor my business. I expect them that to value the honor of my to honor my value there is, to honor the value of my business. I ex I receive value for my business. As I feel these in my body, the nervous system is starting to let go of all of the all the pain of the selfishness, the pain of the old beliefs, the pain, the stored some some scars. And it's starting to rewire itself and realign itself to new beliefs, to healthy selfishness. Because this is energetic work, this is somatic work. This isn't mindset work, this is nervous system work. There's energy stored in your nervous system. And if you don't change the frequency, and if you don't change the composition of the energy in your nervous system, you will continue to live as these as the same person over and over. And for some people, this is easier than for others. This isn't mindset work, this is body work, this is somatic work. I have meditations. I have meditations where you go in, and there's one called installing future you, where you go into your future and you literally put your body into a new future and you allow your body to rest in there so it begins to rewire itself to accept and embrace the new future. Because if your body doesn't feel safe in the new future, you won't, you won't invite it into your life. And if it if you ever get a glimpse of it, you'll give it away as quickly as possible because your nervous system's not conditioned for it. Just like if you don't recondition a nervous system that feels selfish or that's trying to avoid selfishness, or doesn't want to be seen as selfish, or doesn't, or thinks that in order for me to get what I want, somebody has to get hurt in the process. If your body's wired for that, until you change the energy, until you change the emotion, until you change the frequency of what's stored in your body, you're going to continue to get the same results over and over, expecting something different. But nothing else is available to you at that moment because you're only going to live life to the limits of your nervous system. You don't get what you want, you get what you expect, and you only expect to the level of what you feel you deserve. And this is why my three favorite words deserve, expect, and receive. My new three favorite words. I've had other favorite words before, but right now these are the three that are lighting my soul up. I deserve what I want, I expect what I want, and I receive what I want. Because I'm worth what I want. And there's no selfishness in wanting what I want. And there's no selfishness in feeling I deserve what I want. And there's no selfishness in expecting what I want. And there's definitely no selfishness in receiving what I want. I was just trying not to trigger that pain buried in my nervous system.
unknown:T.
SPEAKER_00:Harvecker, I'm going to wrap this thing up with this. T. Harvecker is an awesome author author. And if you've never read The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, he he has a he has a saying, he has a quote in the book, and I'm going to paraphrase it, probably not hit it exactly. But he says, Rich people know exactly what they want. And there's a certainty in that. People who become radically wealthy and rich beyond measure, they there's no mistaking what they want. They know they want to get rich and they know they want to get wealthy. People that struggle with money send mixed messages. And some of the mixed messages that people that play small in the financial world is will I be selfish? Am I selfish? Why aren't I satisfied with what I have? Or just peacefully always content with what I have. Am I gonna hurt somebody by getting what I want? Am I gonna be judged for by be judged for being selfish if I get what I want? These are mixed messages. And with healthy selfishness, it requires that you eliminate all of those stories from your nervous system because that's where these stories, these beliefs, are programmed and conditioned. And until you let go of those, they're gonna run your life instead of instead of you shifting to a higher octave and living life at a higher octave. And this requires you living as the awareness and managing the meat suit instead of letting and allowing the meat suit to manage you, the awareness. All right. If you have any sense of any feeling that you don't deserve, if you struggle to expect, if you struggle to receive, if you are trying to avoid feeling selfish, if being selfish is in conflict in your in your body, we've got some nervous system work to do. Message me, email me, Mike at InnerWealth Global, go to my website, innerwealthglobal.com, connect with me in some way, shape, or form. My meditation package on my website, Inner Wealth Global. Grab some of these things, some of these tools, utilize this, lean into me, message me, and I'll point you in the right direction to how we can work together or a tool that you can use that will help you move the needle. If you enjoyed what you heard and you want to learn more, go to www.interwealthglobal.com for more tools and resources.