The Inner Wealth Podcast

Ep226. Remember That Someone Is Praying for What You Already Have (with Mike and Angie).

• Mike Kitko

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In this episode, Mike and Angie record from a cramped, steep, narrow spiral staircase inside a 1920s Baltimore row house. It's weird, it's cozy, and it's perfect for this annual Thanksgiving episode. Together, they reflect on the beauty of imperfection, the power of gratitude, and the truth that sometimes the life you're living — even with its messiness — is the one someone else is praying for.

Key Takeaways

  1. Gratitude Doesn’t Need to Be Pretty
    It just needs to be felt. Even in awkward spaces, there’s always something to be thankful for.
  2. Your Actual Wealth Isn’t Financial
    Your family, friendships, pets, and peace are your inner wealth — and they matter more than your numbers.
  3. Dissatisfaction Kills Joy
    The more you focus on what’s missing, the more you block the joy already present.
  4. You’re Probably Living Someone Else’s Dream
    Your ordinary might be someone else’s miracle — honor it.
  5. Gratitude Is a Frequency You Can Return To
    You don’t have to hustle for more from lack. You can open to more from fullness.

Notable Quotes

  • “This is the weirdest podcast episode we've done.”
  • “The idea of the day is more focused on appreciating what you have instead of focusing on what you don't have.”
  • “We are highly blessed in ways that aren't financial.”
  • “Someone out there is praying for the things that we're complaining about.”
  • “The more dissatisfied I am with anything, the less joy I have in my life.”

Call to Action

📘 Inner World, Outer World — Available now on Amazon
Gratitude lives in the body. This book helps you feel it.
👉 Order Your Copy

🎧 Watch This Episode on YouTube
You need to see this staircase. Seriously.
👉 Subscribe and Watch

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

My Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikekitko
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 internal happiness and success.


SPEAKER_01:

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 your own? I'm like 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_00:

If you are listening to this, please go and watch the video because we are sitting in the most awkward space. We are in Baltimore, Maryland. We are here to spend Thanksgiving Day at the Baltimore Ravens game with our younger daughter, Megan.

SPEAKER_01:

Wrong side. Here we go.

SPEAKER_00:

But if you are, if you're watching this, you see we're we're in the most narrow spiral staircase ever with brick. We are in your typical 1920s Baltimore Row house. And this is the same kind of house that Mike grew up in. And we were struggling today to find where to record this. And I was like, well, how do we how do we throw in some authenticity of to our to our the location where we are? Because every time we travel, we do a podcast and you know we try to show the the beauty of we've been to the Turks and Caicos this year, we've been to Outer Banks, we've been to Cancun, Park City, Utah. And uh this is probably the most interesting location we'll ever show you.

SPEAKER_01:

It is, and so when Angie books Airbnbs, she does a pretty thorough review of all the reviews and and you know, asks the owners some questions. This is the air, this is the only air Airbnb where it was way overstated how how high the quality and the comfort of this place is. So we were trying to figure out a place, but there's no like aesthetically pleasing places in this in this house to uh to to do the podcast. So we picked to Angie's point, we picked the the most awkward place. And and and this is why you got to go and watch the video because I'm my shoulders, I'm with we're in a staircase. So if you're not watching, if you're listening, and I'm again, I'm gonna encourage you to go to the YouTube channel, subscribe, and and watch this video, because this is the width of the staircase in a in a traditional Baltimore City row house. And this is the kind of house I grew up in. Now, the one I grew up in, the it the stairs were a little wider, but not not a whole lot wider.

SPEAKER_00:

And for perspective, Mike is six foot, 205 pounds.

SPEAKER_01:

So and the reason an Angie has to sit beside me is because there's no room side by side. And we thought that was pretty cool. But but yeah, this is and this is a three-story house. So there's two sets of this thing, and it's spiral, right? And our daughter Megan is here with us, and she said, Well, the the house that I grew up in, she said, We're were the steps as narrow as uh as steep. And I'm yeah, just as steep, maybe a little more wide, a little wider, but not a whole lot wider. But the point being is these houses weren't built for, you know, they weren't built for uh the beauty of the design. They were built for functionality, and they're they're a hundred years old, and you can see the exposed brick in the uh in the in the closet here. Just a just a neat uh, even though the quality was overstated, it's still cool being back here in in a little freaking shotgun house in my hometown.

SPEAKER_00:

And the location is perfect. We're walking distance to Little Italy, Fells Point. If you've never been to Baltimore, those are just two of the iconic places to visit. And I really wanted Megan to experience an authentic live staying in an authentic uh Baltimore row house like this because we have we have a lot of good memories in a little row house like this.

SPEAKER_01:

We do, and a lot of stumbles up the stairs.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my gosh, a lot of stumbles. A lot of stumbles. The first thing I said when we got in here and walked up the stairs, I said, How did we do this back then?

SPEAKER_01:

We were Raven season ticket holders, we'd come home from games and uh highly we were in our 20s, our late 20s and early 30s. Well, who we were in also I was in my late 20s.

SPEAKER_00:

I was in my early 20s.

SPEAKER_01:

She was in her early 20s, but uh we we were much younger, so I don't know today if you know if that's gonna be as easy.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, in all fairness, Megan just managed to walk up both flights of spiral stairs with a glass of water and a mug of hot coffee in her hand and without holding on at all. Meanwhile, I'm climbing up for dear life. Hang on for dear life.

SPEAKER_01:

It is that steep, these stairs are that steep, and and it's just a cool experience. We wanted to show you this. I I actually called my friend Brian and I showed him the house. He said that wouldn't make code in most places, and and he's right, this is like completely out of code for for, I guess maybe this house was grandfathered. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

Maybe historic or something.

SPEAKER_01:

Some some type of historic layout, but yeah, yeah. But anyway, listen, the the day that this uh episode launches, all right, it's gonna be episode 226. And the day it launches, the day it it it publishes, is Thanksgiving Day in the US. All right. We celebrate every, what is it, the last Thursday of every November, we uh we set aside the day and we gather with family, we gather with friends, we gather with each other. I'm getting emotional. We we celebrate the the prosperity that we have in our lives. We celebrate the love that we have in our lives, we celebrate with the people that we love the the life that we get to live. And it's the the day is more focused, the idea of the day is more focused on appreciating what you have instead of focusing on what you don't have. And listen, there's a lot of there's a lot of episodes on this podcast that are about creating the life that you want and getting what you want and achieving what you want and accomplishing and accumulating wealth and you know and and and building a bigger life. But in the early, early launch of this podcast, episode 17, it's called Learning to Want What You Get is more important than learning to get what you want. And that getting emotional. That is what Thanksgiving Day in the US is all about. And we wanted to share this with you a little bit. We're here in one of our favorite places, my hometown. We're going to a Ravens game tomorrow. Uh, we're gonna be with 70,000 people in a stadium that's celebrating uh our hometown and our our our team and our city. And uh we we're taking Megan and she's never been to a Ravens game. And our daughter Katie is is going out to see her boyfriend in Topeka, Kansas. He plays for the uh Topeka Scarecrow. So it's a day to be with the people that you love, and we certainly are with the people that we love.

unknown:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Anything to add?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, you know, I I I just back to loving what you get, you know, thankful for what you get. I mean, this year has been, we've talked about this several times. This year has been been pretty brutal on us, if I'm being honest, business-wise. And there have been times where I've had to make sure to step back into that space instead of uh thinking about what what what's not there, appreciating what is there, because we are definitely very blessed. We uh we are blessed with our our friends, we are blessed with our pets, we are best blessed with our our daughters, our our clients. I mean, it's yeah, we we are we are highly blessed in ways that that don't that aren't financial. And I think that a lot of times people immediately revert to being grateful for their finances versus looking at what your actual wealth is, your inner wealth. Yeah, right, just being emotionally, emotionally um blessed, spiritually blessed, the inner wealth.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, relationally blessed.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And uh in we there's always another level, right? There's always another comma to be added, or a zero to be added, or a new client to add to the portfolio, or increase in in our bank account. There's always another level, there's always another step, there's always another one, another something to add. But if you always focus on what you don't have, you won't appreciate and be grateful and really fall into the blessings, understand the blessings that we do have in this life. And uh I know this this podcast has been listened to on six continents, 105 countries around the world, and uh 1600, I believe over 1,600 cities around the world. And I would say that the reality is we live for and and and it's down the this this podcast is is downloaded mostly in North America and and some in Europe, uh mostly North America, and then uh Europe is number two. But what we'll tell you is we live in the US, we live in the richest country in the world. We have the most blessings in the world, and the poorest people in the US oftentimes have more than the richest person in a lot of countries around the world. And uh, and for that we're grateful. And it's really easy to lose sight of that, how much we really do have in this in this lifetime, because the reality it was it was a it was a uh a strugglicious year in in our business, but we are still blessed and so. We're still blessed, and we're not starving. Yeah, we're not in jeopardy of being hungry, we're not in jeopardy of of a quality of life collapse. We're not in jeopardy of any of that. It's just they're just numbers that we wanted instead of numbers that that we you know that we we received. And we have to take to today and tomorrow and this year, Angie and I have really had to take a step back and say, listen, if we always live from what's next and what's on the table, that's a that's a place of that's a place of lack and a really painful place to be.

SPEAKER_00:

Someone out there is praying for the things that we're complaining about.

SPEAKER_01:

Ooh, and and you are living the life of somebody else's dreams that they can only dream of. And if we live in a a place where it's not enough or it's not good enough, we're leaving a lot, a lot of love and a lot of joy on the table. And what I've learned is the more dissatisfied I am with anything, the less joy I have in my life. They are, they there's a there's a relationship between dissatisfaction and joy. And as your dissatisfaction goes up, and joy goes down, and as your joy goes up, your dissatisfaction goes down. And it's really uh it's really important and valuable that we live from that place. Grateful for what I have, love the life that I get to live, but I'm definitely open the more. But it doesn't have to come from a place of dissatisfaction. It gets to come from a place of gratitude and opening our hearts to receive whatever life like deems us uh worthy of being bestowed on us, right? In in terms of more love, more riches, more whatever, more travel, more relationships.

SPEAKER_00:

I think I'm kind of tapped out for a little bit.

SPEAKER_01:

We've traveled a lot this year.

SPEAKER_00:

Two last two years.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and we'll probably do a wrap-up episode at the end of uh at the end of this year, just talking about how man, the the the amazing journeys that we've had uh throughout the year. But anyway, we didn't want to make this a long episode um for all of you in the U.S. Get back to eating dinner with your with your family and and spending time with the people that you love for everybody else around the world. Thank you for tuning in. Thanks for for following us, thanks for watching us. Um, thanks for celebrating Thanksgiving Day with us by downloading this episode, or maybe it maybe you do it later, maybe you download it uh later, and uh you take some time to settle into a place of gratitude and appreciate and learn how to uh learn how to want what you get instead of get what you want. All right.

SPEAKER_00:

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Thank you. I'll at that thank you again for watching us. I've had a lot of fun being on some episodes with with with you this year and last year, and we've been doing more together, which has been really fun. Um, and again, if you're listening to this, please go and check out the YouTube video just because it's just I feel like a little gnome right now. Um and Michael dropped the the link to that in the comment. And happy Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_01:

Happy Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_00:

We're going to get some crab cakes.

SPEAKER_01:

We are, and uh, I just realized uh a second ago is that and we're traveling, so I have the laptop. I didn't bring like the home studio, but uh I I didn't turn on Do Not Disturb and I didn't turn off the uh the screen mode. So I've had to I've had to bring the screen back up and and decline phone calls. So on the video, you know, hey, this is this is perfectly imperfect, just like everything else that we do. So coming from messiness, teaching and coming from messiness, not trying to look like we have anything mastered. All right. Happy Thanksgiving uh to you, to the people that you love inside the U.S., around the world. It doesn't matter if it's Thanksgiving Day for you, be thankful for whatever you have. Open your heart to more, but always be thankful for what you have. Love you guys. Thank you for sub that for watching us, following us, subscribing to us, and uh and sharing us with people that you love. If you enjoyed what you heard and you want to learn more, go to www.innerwealthglobal.com for more tools and resources.