Ep251. The Ego’s Strugglicious Grip: The 3 Patterns That Keep You Stuck and Pressurized.

In this episode, Mike breaks down a deeper and more personal understanding of the ego—not as something to fight, but something to understand. Drawing from real-life experiences of rapid business growth and contraction, he shares how ego inflated during success and took heavy hits during decline, creating unnecessary pressure, shame, and confusion.

At the core of this conversation is a simple but powerful realization: the ego is fear-based and designed to keep you alive, but when it leads your life, it creates tension, control, and disconnection. By identifying the three primary ways the ego operates, Mike offers a clear path toward loosening its grip and allowing the soul to take the lead, where fulfillment, clarity, and peace actually exist.

Key Takeaways

1. The ego is fear-based and designed for survival.
   It exists to keep you alive by keeping you in familiar and predictable circumstances. 
2. Trying to control everything creates unnecessary pressure.
   The ego attempts to control both what you can control and what you can only influence, leading to stress and frustration. 
3. The ego seeks to control identity and perception.
   It drives the need to be seen a certain way, shaping behavior around external validation instead of authenticity. 
4. Avoiding discomfort prevents growth and evolution.
   The ego keeps you in familiar environments, even if they limit expansion and fulfillment. 
5. As the ego quiets, the soul becomes louder.
   Real fulfillment comes when you stop letting fear lead and allow your deeper awareness to guide your life. 

Notable Quotes

•  “The ego is the fear-based part of your humanity.” 
•  “Control what you can control, influence what you can influence, but never try to control what you only influence.” 
•  “The ego tries to control everything, what it can control and what it cannot control.” 
•  “The louder the role the ego plays in your life, the quieter the soul.” 
•  “If fear is leading the way, so is ego.” 

Call to Action

If this episode resonated, it’s an invitation to start paying attention to where the ego is running the show in your life. Not to fight it—but to understand it, relate to it, and begin loosening its grip.

If you’re ready to do that work at a deeper level, reach out directly to Mike at mike@innerwealthglobal.com.

And if you’re getting value from the Inner Wealth Podcast, subscribe, rate, and review so we can continue reaching more people who are ready to expand their life and circumstances in alignment.

This is the work—evolving in alignment with who you are and the path you’re here to walk.

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

Transcript

The Question Behind Your Stress

SPEAKER_00 0:04

You're gonna wake up feeling like you're something distinctly in your life. You won't feel the need to escape your business. Are you running your life or is your life running? I'm I keep going. I'm helping designing and throwing the life is no authentic and align with who you really are. You don't get excited just to wake up. I'll help you putting real wealth to exactly freedom from the inside out.

What Ego Really Means Here

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Welcome to the Inner Wealth Podcast, where we learn and choose to live inspired each and every day. One time I was sitting down for breakfast with my closest friend, and we we started having a discussion around the ego and talking about the grips that the ego gets on us and the tension it creates in our life. And you know, if you there's so many books and so many spiritual books that refer to the ego and and in the spiritual community and and in you know spirituality and in spiritual teachings, when we talk about the ego, it it we we tend to know what the ego is, but I tell you what, I've never really I've never really heard it completely described in a way that that just makes sense for me, up maybe up until this point. And I'm starting to get clearer and clearer about what the ego is and the role it plays and you know what it's for, and and the more importantly, I guess, is the the ways that it inflicts, in some cases, inflicts suffering on our life when when when it's not managed, when it's not understood, when it's not when it's not embraced, or when you don't have a great relationship with your ego. And that's what I want to talk about on today's podcast episode is not just maybe describing a little bit about the ego, but the three ways that I've experienced in my own life, uh, the way the ego has caused some suffering, caused some struggle, and caused some some uh some pressure that that was unnecessary, that is unnecessary. But when you don't understand the the grips that the ego could have on you, it's it's hard to it's hard to not be contained and be pressurized by the ego. And the I guess the best way in in my my latest book that I released in August of 2025, well, my birthday, August 19th, 2025, chapter two is called The Ego and the Soul. And even in that chapter, even though that's a uh in my opinion, it's an amazing book. And I've been told by a guy that uh that read hundreds and hundreds of personal development books, he this was in his top three, inner world, outer world is in his top three. Um, it's a great book. And it it it is, it will liberate you and help you, help you liberate yourself from uh, you know, from the pressures of life and and stress and tension and get into alignment with who you are and who you came here to be and the purpose that you came here to serve. But even in chapter two about the ego and the soul, I don't do a great job of talking about the grips of the ego. And that's what I want to do today. But inside that chapter, I do talk about the ego is the fear-based part of your humanity. It is, it is the it is the the part of your body, the part of your your makeup, the part of your vehicle that that succumbs and is led by fear. And you can also say, you know, as I've as I've evolved and as I've grown, you know, the the ego is also, you know, the nervous system, and that's also the unconscious. And these are all kind of the same things, and they all have one thing in in per in common and one purpose in in our life, and that's to keep us alive. All right. The ego, which you can uh I like to look at the ego and the nervous system as the same, but I also have a a visual of the ego uh that that is very useful for me. And I'm gonna uh I'm gonna I'm gonna take you on that journey a

Meeting The Ego In Meditation

SPEAKER_00 4:27

little bit. I read a book one time called The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford. And inside the dark side of the light chasers, she has a lot of uh a lot of exercises and a lot of guided meditations. And in one of her guided meditations, she takes you into the an elevator and starts to drop you into the lower levels of your subconscious. And it's like you you you take an elevator as far down into the depths of you as you could possibly get. And it's it's on this elevator you go looking for, you know, the ego. You go looking for the ego. And and when you find the ego, you know, it's it's it's the you find it and you you start to get a visual of what it looks like. And what you're really trying to do is get a visual representation of you know what your mind's eye would have the ego look like. And when I did this exercise, I got off the elevator and I started walking through this dark wasteland of a room and of an area. And it it almost looked like a movie where there was water dripping from the you know the ceiling and there was there was leaks and cracks in the walls and and the foundation was cracked, and it was just a dirty, damp, dank place. And it was also representative when I did this meditation, it was also representative of what how I felt on the inside as well. And as I as I navigated this room and as I walked around, what I saw in my visualization in my meditation was I saw Gollum. And if if you've ever watched uh um Lord of the Rings, you know what I mean by Gollum. But I saw Gollum that, and he was huddled up in a corner and he was green, he was really bright green, and he was ugly, and he was hairy, and he was nasty, and and he was huddled up in a corner, and he couldn't make himself any smaller. And in he was shaking, it was like visual, visually and visibly shaking from fear, and like kind of growling and watering at the mouth and the had, you know, I don't know, mucus coming out of his nose and his face. But he was huddled up in the corner and he was shaking and and just full of anxiety, full of fear, full of full of panic, full of just yeah, he was so frightened. And when I went to to meet Gollum, and I went to meet uh my ego, right? That was the visual representation of ego inside of this meditation. You got to play with, you know, and and relate with ego a little bit. And almost, you know, with with this expression, you call it ego mic, but you know, with this ego expression expression, you got to relate with it and tell it, you know, really talk to it and say, hey, you know, it's okay. We're safe. You are safe. You've been hurt, you've been abused, you've been victimized, you've been, you've been manipulated, you've been hurt, you've been, you've been tortured during the course of your life, and there's no longer that level of danger in the world. And it's okay to come out from the corner, and it's okay to come out and and and not live in in absolute horror or anxiety and fear. And inside of this meditation, I got to relate with the ego a little bit, the the the golem, which represented my ego. And from there, you start to develop a healthier relationship with ego. All right. And what ego represents with in that in that visual, what ego represents is not just the fear that's inside of me, but it's how I relate with that fear and what what my insides, what my darkness, what my shadows actually represented and what they felt like and how I how I experienced them deep inside the recesses of my subconscious. And at that moment, you know, and we're talking about seven, eight years ago when I did this visual and this meditation, I was in a very, very dark place, probably eight, eight or nine years ago. I was in a very dark place. And I was my life was in transition, and I didn't feel good about myself. I didn't feel valuable, I didn't feel worthy, I did feel like I've been tortured my whole life, and I did feel like life was just a big punishment. And that is why Gollum inside of me and Mike ego, that's why, or ego Mike, that's why he was so huddled up and shrunken, is because it was like he was he had been beaten down his whole life. And ever since that, you know, there was there's been a long time since that visual, a long time that I really didn't relate with Gollum or do any work around Gollum, but you know, Mike Ego, Ego Mike. But

Success Shrinks And Identity Hurts

SPEAKER_00 9:39

lately it's really been rearing its head and and it's it's been something that I've been sitting with because I realized back in, you know, I had a couple years of tremendous, tremendous business growth where where we had workshops, we had a series of workshops, and we just kept adding new students to my mastermind. And and there was it just kept getting bigger and bigger. And I went from approximately 15 to 20 students up to 75 in a course of a year. And when we had our retreat in Miami, it was there were 55 people in this retreat center. It was like everything that I always wanted. And there were, you know, I've got a picture of them all wearing their inner wealth shirts and and just a house full of students, and they were all there to do, you know, work within within the inner wealth mastermind and and my business, Innerwealth Global. And I got to lead and I got to see them and inspire them and and have them connect. And it was just the most amazing retreat experience that I could ever imagine. And the two years leading up to that built that mastermind, but then the two years after that retreat, it it declined quickly. And it was almost like it was just falling apart and there was nothing I could do about it. And I kept marketing in the same ways and I kept promoting in the same ways, and people were leaving faster than they were joining. And before you know it, that that 15 to 20 people mastermind that blew up to 75 was back down. And right now we are back down around 20. And that's been a very, very humbling experience for me. Very humbling. In some cases, it's been embarrassing because, you know, I I didn't I didn't do a whole lot to build it back in the day. I was getting invited by people to come and speak on their stages. And when I spoke on the stages, my audience started growing. And then when my audience grew, I would launch workshops. And those people that seen me speak and were already looking up to me as a, you know, as a as a as a figure, as a public figure, as a uh as someone who's a teacher and someone who's intense in teachings about personal power and personal sovereignty and and having personal authority over yourself in your life. When they when they saw that, and I already had that level of credibility in their eyes because of the stages that I had been on, they they joined my map my workshops. And from there, I they converted pretty easily into my mastermind. And then the craziest thing happened. I started, I stopped getting invited to people's stages. And all the invites and all the speaking engagements over the last few years have kind of dried up. They've slowed down where they were coming at me so fast for a period of time. And I didn't do anything to make them come. And lately I haven't done anything to make them start up again. And as I do the same things and even more to try to rebuild what was one time a machine of a mastermind that was that was financially lucrative, that was impactful in the world, that you know, that was the to match the dream that I had in my mind. It as I did what I did before, when I when I continued to do what I'd done before, even more, nothing seemed to work. And it was almost like there was this feeling of helplessness that that consumed me and started to take over. And, you know, it created some it created some depression, it created some embarrassment, it created some shame, and and I got to experience these things over the lap, probably the last two years. It's been it's been a little struggle in terms of what I saw was my ego building identity around the success that I had. And I'm saying that on purpose, but my ego golem built an identity around success that I didn't necessarily create myself. I got invited by people to come and speak on their stage. I spoke on the stage, people joined my uh my my audience, and from there, when I invited, they just naturally and easily joined my workshops. I didn't do anything exceptional in order to build it. So then when I couldn't continue to build it, because I had never really built it before, when I continued to build it, it was like there was a part of me that felt like a failure because my ego had built an identity around the success that I had over those two years, over the course of two years, that I really did nothing to create. And that's important. I don't feel like I did anything to create the success. And then I felt like a failure because I couldn't continue with that successful pattern. And lately, where I'm going with all this, lately I've been exploring those two years leading up and the growth, and then the two years that that were after, and the contraction and the compression of the mastermind and of the business, and realizing that my ego inflated over the two years that the mastermind was building. And then my ego took lots and lots of hits and bumps and bruises and got bloodied over the course of two years as it came back down to to the size that it was before the growth, that I didn't necessarily do anything to create. And it's been a valuable, valuable lesson. And in some cases, I feel like I'm a I'm a canary in a coal mine where where I feel like I go out and I experience all these trials and tribulations and these experiences that give me the knowledge and give me the wisdom of the lead-in to those to those punishing circumstances and then the resolution, the the things, the the new beliefs, the new perspectives, the new the new trajectory that that that eventually helps me transcend those challenges and obstacles. And then I from there I get to teach because that wisdom that I possess, the the wisdom that I possess, comes from experience, not from not from knowledge, not from a book. It's real life, real lived, real life experience. And and I'm sure if you've listened to any episodes of this podcast, I teach from experience, not from theory. I teach, I don't teach from a book, I teach from my life. It's easiest for me to teach from my life. And lately I've been getting back into re-engaging with my ego, with Gollum, making peace with that, with that fear-based part of me, and starting to try to understand what the hell happened over the last couple of years, over the last, let's say, four years, and what have I learned from it? And

Three Ways Ego Takes Control

SPEAKER_00 17:10

I've learned that when ego, as as I started to become successful, right, as as the success started to build, so did my ego inflate. And the ego inflation caused three things. Okay. So these are the three, the three signs and the three experiences that you'll have, and the three, I guess, ways of living that you'll experience when your ego is taking control. Number one is that you try to control everything. The ego thrives off of control. And the ego tries to control things that it has no chance of controlling. And on other podcast episodes I've done, because I've been learning this lesson over, you know, over the last 10 years, is the lesson is control what you can control, influence what you can influence, but never ever try to control what you only influence. And I can control the outbound marketing, I can control the outbound messaging, but I can't control people saying yes and opting into my programs. I can't control people joining my workshop. I can't control people joining my mastermind. The only thing I could do is controlling the message and how the invitations I'm making and things that are outbound. I can control what's happening in my body and the choices and the decisions I'm making about how I show up in life. I can control that. But the ego in the shadow state, when you're in coming from a place of fear, the ego tries to control everything, what it can control and when it can, what it cannot control. And when you try to control things that you only influence, all it does is lead to extreme amounts of pressure, stress, and tension in the body. And you start to try to figure out what can't be figured out. And you try to get people to say yes when they really want to say no, because you feel like the ego feels like it should be in control and it should have everything figured out. And not only should it control what the outcome, but it also should control how it happens and the timing of when it happens. So the number one sign that you're operating from ego is you're trying to control everything, including things way outside of your control. And the human ego does not like to admit or acknowledge that there are things outside of its control. Number two is when you're operating from it from ego, you try to control your appearance, you try to control how people see you, and you try to control how people perceive you. And back in Nashville, I did our our Nashville retreat a few episodes ago. I talked about my speedo journey and my speedo experience. And all that was was beginning the process of loosening the ego's control over her, over my nervous system and how I was perceived and how I was seen in the world. And then Angie and I went to Cancun, and that that inner noise wasn't there, that languaging, that that internal chatter wasn't there about how I looked in my body and how I looked in my swimsuit and and and what if people were looking at me. So it's like the the ego from just doing that that Speedo uh adventure and with with teaching in front of my my students at Nashville Retreat, I taught in front of them in front of uh in a speedo while I was telling them how freaking awfully frightening it was and how embarrassed I was to be seen in my full form in my body. And as I taught in a speedo, the the ego started loosening its grip on me and how I'm seen in that speedo or in my body. But when you take a look at it, you know, going back to Miami and that retreat, I've got this one picture where we're we're on the steps of the mansion that we stayed in, and there were 55 of us in this picture, and almost everybody's wearing an inner wealth shirt. And it's like that was that was an image and a graphic representation of that I used. And I used it a lot to show how awesome I am. Ego, trying to control how I'm seen and how I'm perceived. I would show that picture to show how successful and how accomplished I was. It was an ego stroke. That picture served as an ego stroke for me. And when I when I teach in workshops and we have pictures, you know, I always want the angle that shows that there's a lot of people in the room. These are ego strokes. This is the ego trying to control how you're seen. Control the appearance that you have, that you portray in the world. Try to control your identity, how people perceive you. Branding is a form of ego, of how you're perceived, of how the market perceives you, of how the market thinks about you. And at one point I went from, you know, I talked in in prior episodes, I've talked about my my wardrobe, my clothes collection. And what I would do is go out and I would find a shirt that I that I find comfortable, like this shirt that I have on. You've probably, if you've watched this episode or if you've watched this podcast, you've seen this type of shirt many, many times because I wear them a lot. But I would find a shirt that I really enjoyed that I felt comfortable in. And I would go out and buy one of every color. And then I would end up only wearing black. Or I would rotate through other colors, even though I just wanted to wear the black one because I love wearing black. And then after I realized that I was trying to control people's perception of me, I can't wear the same color, the same shirt, the same color every day because they're going to think I didn't wash my clothes. And then I start to build, you know, I started to let go of the hold that that had on me. And I would go out. I own four, four copies of this same exact shirt. And if you're if you're not watching, if you're paying attention on uh Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any other of the audio versions, it's my long sleeve built shirt with the hood and the strings. You've seen it many, many times. If you've seen me on social media or you've seen me speak or whatever, you've seen this shirt many, many times, this version. But I have four of them all black because I'm no longer like worried about how people perceive me and if they think I'm washing my clothes because I've worked through that ego madness. And now it's almost like it's pegged the other way. And now my ego won't allow me to wear other colors because my my identity is built around wearing a black shirt. So the ego took that ego dissolution and it took it in a different way. And now, you know, no disrespect to anyone, but you've got teenagers and people in their early 20s getting lip injections and getting body work and you know, putting filters and their appearance and trying to sculpt on social media, trying to show up and try to try to be seen a certain way. And it's like they're already in a place of shame in their body, their egos already protecting their image in their body in their in their late teens and early 20s. What is it going to look like when they're 60 and 70? And this is all ego control and ego manipulation to try to control how they're seen, try to control their appearance, try to control their identity, and try to control how they're perceived. And I've seen a lot of this over the course of the last four years as my mastermind built and as it dissolved. So, number one way that the ego exerts control is to try to control outcomes. Number two is how you are perceived and how you're seen. And the number three thing that ego tries to do and causes you to navigate the world in a state of avoiding discomfort. And it only tries to keep you in a place, in a state that is comfortable and familiar. And you've heard me, if you've, again, if you've listened to any episodes, any number of episodes, the the nervous system slash the ego has one goal and one goal only is to keep you alive. It keeps you alive by trying to keep you in familiar circumstances, and it tries to keep you in familiar circumstances because it knows how to keep you alive there. And that is the grip of the ego. As long as it can keep you in between the lanes of certainty and keep you in certain and familiar circumstances, then it can keep you alive. And that's when Gollum can not shake so much in the corner of the room. And over the past few years, all three of these have been prevalent in my life. Try to control outcomes that I can't control, that I only influence. Try to perceive how I or try to control how I'm perceived, my identity and how people see me, my appearance in the world. And at times trying to avoid the discomfort just by getting the water level of the business and of the money and of everything back to the level where it was, because that had become the new familiar. And now less feels unsafe. And that puts a hit on the ego. And then the ego goes into action to try to get back into a place of familiarity by and control the outcomes so that we can be seen a certain way.

Make Peace And Let Soul Lead

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Guys, the question I asked of you and for you and with you is how much do you allow the ego to control your life? Because in inner world, outer world, which I would encourage you to grab a copy because it's a really, really good book and it is my soul work. It's not just a, it's not just a work, it's a work of art for my soul, it's an expression of my soul. What I'll tell you is the louder the role the ego plays in your life, the quieter the soul. And the more we turn down the volume of the ego, the louder the soul leads, lives, and shows up in the world. And you you ultimately, this thing that we are in the world, we have a body, you have a body, you have a mind, but you're neither of those. You are the soul, you are the awareness inside of that body, using the supercomputer of a mind to navigate the earthly realm. But the more you operate as the ego, the less you will allow the soul to be in control, and the more struggle your life will be. Are you ready to start making peace, not fighting the ego, but making peace with it and helping that fear-based part of you feel more and more safe over time? And as you feel more safe, that ego volume turns down, and I guarantee you the volume of your soul is going to turn up, and that is where you'll find your greatest fulfillment. Because when the soul is leading, there only is fulfillment. And the fear dampens and turns way down, and we can acknowledge that it's there, but we don't have to let it lead the charge and lead the show. If fear is leading the way, so is ego. It's time to come to terms and come to grips with it, make peace with it, and let the soul become the leader of your life. If you enjoyed what you heard and you want to learn more, go to www.innerwealthglobal.com for more tools and resources.