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Mike Kitko

Unlock your true potential

Master Failure, and Grow

Do you feel you are forcing life or are you enjoying what you are doing and who you are with on a daily basis? We learn most through our failures, not our successes. Competence grows with experience. Mastery comes with extreme competence. In order to increase your competence, you must fail. Celebrate failure. That’s how human beings learn. Master failure, and grow.

You Are Enough Right Now

We each have innate gifts and talents. There are no exceptions. Everyone possesses value. The issue that I faced in my own life, and the issue I see in my clients, is that others see that our strengths come so easily and naturally to us, that these strengths are easy and natural for everyone. We diminish our own value.

An engineer who found math easy since they were taught that 1+1=2 struggles to understand how anyone finds math difficult.

A naturally gifted public speaker finds it difficult to understand why others hate being on a stage in front of hundreds and thousands of people.

A professional writer or editor who feels at one with their pen and paper, and was writing short stories in first grade cannot conceive of someone not loving to write as an expression of themselves.

There is Only One YOU

We all have gifts. The challenge is in identifying these talents and gifts, recognizing that others possess uniqueness as well which you see clearly, truly developing a deep appreciation for your own gifts and talents, and accepting that others are seeking what you have to offer because not everyone brings what you bring.

In essence, there’s only one of you in the whole world. There was a one in 400 trillion (That’s one in 400,000,000,000,000 chance!) for you to be born.

And, you made it! You are a miracle! If you still don’t feel like a miracle, continue on with the process of developing personal power through physical well-being, mental discipline, and emotional clarity. You’ll feel like a miracle through that process, I promise you!

Understand that you don’t need to be anyone else, or possess any additional skills than you have right now to positively impact people’s lives. Just dig deep and understand yourself, appreciate yourself, and serve others from that point.

You can continue to evolve and grow, but you are capable of service to others right now.

Be A Master of Your Business

If you are an entrepreneur and would like to go further in your business-mastery journey, there is an in-depth course for you. You’ll gain a deeper understanding of why you desire freedom, and see how creating a powerful business will fit in and fuel the rest of your life. It will give you the tools necessary to build courage and confidence and understand that failure is your greatest source of learning. The course focuses on creating a money mindset capable of creating prosperity without guilt and shame by providing value for value. And, since results matter, you’ll learn how to drive results by increasing time and energy to devote to your business. Learn more about our Entrepreneurial-Mastery course.

If you are interested in finding out what private coaching with me looks like, schedule some time for us to connect here.

YOU: Your Most Important Relationship

If there’s one thing I can say for certain in my life, it’s that what I learned about relationships from the day I was born was 100% wrong.

Nope, I’m not exaggerating. I was taught that the entire purpose of life was self-sacrifice and to serve others from that state. I was taught that everyone else comes first — always. That single belief, passed on for many generations, created so much pain in my life that I almost committed suicide. Again, I am not exaggerating.

I spent so much time, energy, and effort serving others and doing what benefitted others — at my own expense — that I completely lost myself. When it came to a choice between what I wanted and what someone else wanted, I gave in. When it came down to taking care of myself or another person, I always chose the other person.

I was 300 pounds of physical, mental, and emotional chaos in human form. I just wanted it all to end. So it all collapsed. And, thank God it all collapsed. That allowed me to finally see that I didn’t have it all figured out, and I was forced to rethink everything.

 

Love Yourself

The most important relationship you have is the one with yourself. Read that again.

If you feel resistance with that statement, that is the reason for any struggle and suffering you have experienced in your life. There are no exceptions to this rule.

When we do not have a relationship with ourselves, we will experience struggles with our identity, health, wealth, and the amount of love we give and receive. Everything we create in our lives can be traced back to how we perceive ourselves in relation to everything else.

I’ll offer you my truth, and one that has served me and many others powerfully: you are the most important person on the entire planet. You are just as important as everyone else, and no more important than anyone else.

When you fully grasp and embrace this, you put yourself second to no one, you allow no one to challenge your worth and value. You also recognize that your body, mind, and emotions are worthy of self-care and health. You open yourself to recognize and embrace your natural innate talents and gifts, and when you give those talents to others, you open yourself to receive the prosperity you deserve. Finally, you open yourself to receiving unconditional love.

Put Yourself First

Personal power is the presence of clarity, confidence, and courage, which creates powerful identity, health, wealth, and love. Personal power starts and ends with the amount of time you spend building a solid relationship with yourself.

When you put yourself second, it typically revolves around the fact that you feel inferior in some way from emotional trauma or experiences. This trauma creates a sense of obligatory self-sacrifice for the benefit of others. Of course, there are temporary periods of parenting and serving others, but feelings of self-worth and self-esteem will empower you to regain your balance and resume the process of self-care and relationship building with yourself. Self-sacrifice is never the answer.

There’s a popular metaphor that says your ability to show up for others is like the guidance that is given on an airplane before take-off: put your mask on first. This comparison might be cliche and worn out, but it is applicable nonetheless.

You might be able to contribute unequal time or effort to others over a short period of time, but over a long period of time, depletion will occur, and your ability to give will diminish. Putting your own mask on first, taking care of your own well-being, enables and empowers you to make a consistent contribution, and serve your family, tribe, and society from a position of power, not depletion.

Are You Showing Up For Yourself?

Do you set aside time for yourself each day? How many hours per week do you pour into healing and relating to yourself? I encourage you to consider trying something new. For one week, find an additional 30 minutes for yourself each day to grow and heal. Read, meditate, get a massage, exercise, etc. To find the time, replace unproductive habits with those that serve. Over time, increase this amount until you are serving yourself more than you are serving others. Be creative. Rebalancing your life will increase the quality of your life.

Be A Master of Your Life

If you are interested in going further into your life-mastery journey, I have created an in-depth course for you. This will guide you to gain a greater sense of aliveness, connection, and purpose in the world. You’ll receive clarity in what you want and who you want to be. You’ll be a better master of your physical, mental, and emotional states. You will be more capable of creating prosperity without guilt and shame. You will have more confidence to use your talents and gifts to serve others powerfully to create value in their lives.

If you are interested in finding out what coaching with me looks like, schedule some time for us to connect here.

It’s OK to Be Scared

It’s okay to be scared.

It’s okay to fear uncertainty.

It’s okay to doubt past choices or current choices, or what the future holds.

It’s OK to Not Know

It’s okay to be living in fear of what the future holds right now. It’s okay to not know. It’s okay to be anxious. It’s okay to dread the uncertainty that the future is bringing us. These are typical human emotions. When I didn’t have a healthy relationship with fear and uncertainty, I became paralyzed and was brought to my knees.

When I didn’t understand the internal workings of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, then I didn’t understand fully how to move forward and embrace the fears. They paralyzed me, and they basically enabled me – or forced me, in some cases – to hold up a bigger mirror than I ever thought I needed to hold up to myself to figure out who I really was, and what the hell was going on with my life.

Emotions are Mirrors. Do Not Look Away.

When you start to experience fear, doubt, and uncertainty inside of you, those emotions are basically showing you who you are at the core. Do not look away. Your emotions are showing you the beliefs you’re holding. Your core money fear is showing you deep-rooted money trauma. Fear of losing your job is showing you that you’re not confident in your abilities to create opportunities out of a challenge.

The fear, uncertainty, and doubt that you possess inside are showing you opportunities to grow as a human being. You don’t have to live in those states. Yes, they are typical human responses and they are completely normal.

But you can use them to grow instead of letting them paralyze you.

Lead Yourself Powerfully

I am always looking to expand my business, reach more people, and create more impact in the world.

Today, I’m offering my free 10-day Awakened Leadership course for free. This course has three outcomes:

  • Understand the non-negotiable leadership orientations and qualities that drive exceptional personal and financial results.
  • Develop a powerful mindset to embrace that results are your duty and obligation to yourself, your society, and your family.
  • Gain the focus and capacity to not lose yourself and your family in the process of achieving these personal and financial results.

The course is packed with videos, workbooks, assessments, and action plans to help you become a better leader and to move the needle on your life circumstances. Here’s a chance to create more for yourself and everyone you meet!

Register for my free Awakened Leadership course here!

 

Challenge Brings Growth

I’ve endured molestation and carried on.

I’ve experienced neglect and abandonment and learned to stand alone.

I’ve witnessed intense violence and bullying and learned to defend myself.

I’ve been called worthless, useless, and a waste of space, only to excel academically and professionally.

I’ve been told I could not become a Marine, and I am. I crushed it.

I assumed responsibility for a failing manufacturing plant, and I led a turn-around from the captain’s seat.

I’ve been labeled a high-potential executive in multiple organizations and promoted multiple times.

I’ve been fired twice, only to build my own business and hire my own employees.

I swirled in alcoholism and decided to quit cold turkey.

And at my lowest, I’ve held a loaded gun in my hands and was seconds from taking my life and didn’t.

I filed for divorce in a toxic marriage, then we put the marriage back together to become the example.

I love challenges. Want to know what they’ve taught me?

I don’t quit. When backed into a corner…

There’s no one better.

I’ve never quit anything in my life. They’ve made me what I am.

Mental discipline and emotional courage come from challenges, not the absence of challenges.

I create bigger problems because I trust myself to solve them.

Don’t think I can?

Here. Hold my water. 🔥🔥🔥

And the coolest part?

Anything I can do, you can do, too.

The More For Free, The More For A Fee

When I began my coaching business, I just wanted someone to pay me for my time. I had just finished up my time in corporate America, and my resume was so full of holes that no one would have me for the salary I was asking. I finished runner-up for 4-5 positions, and I saw the writing on the wall. That door had closed. It was time to move on.

The only thing I ever enjoyed about my executive positions was developing high-performing teams and high-performing people. When I decided that I would start my own coaching and consulting business, I just wanted someone to pay me. The first invoice paid would be the first time I had ever earned any income without being behind a corporate logo. I was anxious to get my first yes, but I was also terrified that that yes would never come.

My Early Days

I had a coach who taught me the fundamentals. He taught me how to introduce myself as a coach, how to let people know about the pain and the challenges that I helped people overcome, and how to make clear the benefits of working with me. I did all of that with grace and ease. I began having what coaches call “discovery sessions” with people who were interested in sorting out their challenges.

There was a magical moment the first time I was speaking with a prospect when I realized that I could actually help this person overcome their challenges. She was in the real estate industry and had some confidence and courage issues that were getting in her way. I listened to her problems and her challenges, and I got excited. With my United States Marine Corps experience as well as my time in corporate America, it was a slam dunk that I could help her. However, when I asked if she’d be interested in working with me, she was reluctant and hesitant. She began pulling away – even though I knew I could help her. She left without agreeing to coach with me, and I never heard from her again. Total ghost-job.

Nothing But No

For the first few months of my new career, professional after professional pulled away from me without agreeing to work with me. This happened over and over until my first yes – a mortgage broker who said yes and agreed to a very small deal, but two days later texted me to tell me that the yes had turned to a no.

Frustrated, I reflected on what I was doing wrong, and a friend of mine in the coaching business asked me directly, “Mike, how do they know that you can actually help them? How have you proven yourself?” It was a great question, and the question floored me. He was right. I was always up for a challenge, and I now had the opportunity to sort it all out and overcome that challenge.

After I reflected for a while, I decided that there was no way that they could be confident in my abilities. I had no proven experience, no results, and no testimonials. I would need to come at it a different way. I had to coach them before I was their coach. That’s when everything changed.

Show Your Value First

I was sitting with another real estate professional and we were having coffee. He explained his trouble motivating his team of agents. I asked question after question, offered a ton of guidance, gave him many tools, tips, and techniques to help him lead his team more effectively, and probably two hours of powerful coaching to help him move the needle on his team. I spoke like I was already his coach. I didn’t ask him to hire me.

After a few hours, something crazy happened. Because I had given him so much of myself and because he saw the knowledge, wisdom, and power in my words and experience, he hired me. We agreed to two small workshops for his team. My first two deals. I had coached him before I was hired, and he ended up hiring me.

I called my wife and told her that we were in business. This time the yes was really a yes.

Giving Pays

After two days of workshops, two of his team members pulled me aside and asked if I would coach them. I spent some time with each of them and we separately agreed to deals for private coaching – my first two private clients ever. They saw the knowledge, wisdom, and power in the workshops and they hired me because I had already proven myself. From those two yesses, my confidence skyrocketed. My private practice grew fast and furious. I learned my lesson – coach them before I’m their coach.

Since that valuable lesson, I’ve built some really cool offerings in my business. They haven’t all been super successful, but it was still fun to build them. One thing that I remembered from my early coaching experience: give value before you expect value. Give before expecting to receive. I’ve recognized this over and over, and as my business grows, I see that the more I give, the more it expands. The goal is never to see how much I can grow but to see how much I can give. I spend lots of money to market new free offerings, but money always flows back in like magic. Some periods see higher income levels than others, but since I began coaching, I’ve always exceeded my highest level of corporate pay for a full year of sales. Giving pays. That’s been an invaluable lesson to learn.

 

The Cycle of Value Creation and How to Build Wealth

The Cycle of Value Creation

Here’s a process to follow. I call it my cycle of value creation.

  1. Recognize and develop the value you have to give.
  2. Begin generously giving that value in the world and creating impact. This is the part that most people get hung up on by waiting until someone pays them to begin creating impact. I never stop coaching — ever.
  3. Open yourself to receiving when others are ready to reciprocate with a financial exchange, which sometimes is the hardest part.
  4. Reinvest in your service and impact to increase the strength of your message, reach, and impact. To grow, you must be willing to reinvest time, energy, and money into the process.
  5. Recognize and develop the value you have to give, and begin the process all over again.

The red roadblocks indicate some of the major pitfalls you might experience in your quest. People often face leading and serving society as a “WIIFM,” or “what’s in it for me?” This will bring the entire flywheel to a screeching halt and eliminate the purpose of creating personal power. Poisonous money beliefs that will cause unnecessary pain and suffering, as well as cause you to live a life of scarcity. We are conditioned that money is evil, taking money from others is dirty, money is our lifeblood, and asking for money is greedy. This has caused money guilt and shame to run rampant in our society.

Join My Free Course

I am always looking to expand my business, reach more people, and create more impact in the world.

I’m looking to give more away today. I’m offering my free 10-day Awakened Leadership course totally for free. This course has three outcomes:

  • Understand the non-negotiable leadership orientations and qualities that drive exceptional personal and financial results.
  • Develop a powerful mindset to embrace that results are your duty and obligation to yourself, your society and your family.
  • Gain the focus and capacity to not lose yourself and your family in the process of achieving these personal and financial results.

The course is packed with videos, workbooks, assessments, and action plans to help you become a better leader and to move the needle on your life circumstances. Here’s a chance to create more for yourself and everyone you meet!

Register for my free Awakened Leadership course here!

Gift Away!

I’d also love it if you’d share this article with all the people you care about. Maybe it will inspire them to achieve and create more, and will also help me give more away for free. The more I give away for free, the more my business grows. You’ll be helping me immensely!

Consider where this is true in your life and business, too. It’s a universal law, so it only applies 100 percent of the time. The more you give, the more you receive. Use this law to your advantage. I’ve shared that nugget with you, so that’s even more for me! Have fun with giving stuff away for free. It’s a game. Let’s have some fun and create some impact. We can’t do that keeping all of the good stuff to ourselves. You’ll see that giving is a lot more fun anyway. Happy giving! Gift away!

Words Will Never Hurt Me

I grew up in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland. My neighborhood had bars on every corner and thrived when the steel mill was booming. I was born into a blue-collar family, and the blue-collar, rough-and-tumble mentality surrounded me at all times. I kept my guard and demonstrated a tough exterior at home, school, and on the playground. I didn’t do a great job of it, and I was bullied everywhere I went.

My brother was one of the tough guys in the neighborhood. No one messed with him. My dad had toughened him up to the point that he could hold his own at all times. My brother tried to pass this on to me, but I wasn’t made like them. I intentionally avoided conflict, so conflict – and bullies – found me.

Bullies mess with the weak, not the strong

When I was in school there was this kid named Tom who would threaten me every day. I swear that we’d be laughing and joking, and out of nowhere he’d just say, “That’s it, Mike. You’re dead after school.” For the rest of the day, I would be extraordinarily nice to him to try to avoid a fight. But Tom never laid a finger on me. He just made a game out of it, and it worked every time. He probably did the same thing 100 times, and I was just as scared every time. I just always expected the worst.

High school was no different. It was there that I encountered Tim, who was cut from the same cloth as Tom. Every day he said he was going to hurt me, and never did until one day when he pushed me. I was forced to fight. I shifted from scared to intense in a split second, and I beat the snot out of Tim. He never said another threatening word to me. I did a pretty good job of staying out of fights for the rest of high school. I still felt weak because I wasn’t like the other kids. I avoided conflict, and it seemed like the rest of the kids in my class ran toward conflict. I wasn’t like them. I felt less than. I was surrounded by tough kids, and I felt weak.

I tried to toughen my exterior

To toughen up, I joined the United States Marine Corps in 1992. It built my resolve, persistence, physical strength, and the willingness to face conflict, but did not build in me the desire to create conflict. However, the Marines all around me brawled without hesitation. I continued to lurk in the shadows. I felt like a weak Marine, but my fitness reports and leadership ratings kept increasing. I was viewed as a stellar Marine, but inside I still felt weak.

In 1999, I met the love of my life, and we married in 2001. From the second I met her I made sure she understood that I was in charge and that the life we built together would mirror the 1950’s “husband wears the pants, daddy is right” environment I grew up in. In my marriage and my parenting style, I used tough words, guilt, and shame to control and manipulate my family to get them to fit into my image. This was forced onto them because secretly I felt that I couldn’t allow the world to see me weak and not in control. My control and manipulation was for my self-satisfaction and ego, not for the happiness of my family.

The facade couldn’t last much longer

Ours was a picture-perfect life complete with a beautiful family, executive titles and income, lots of material things. Yet, inside we were dying. To feel powerful, despite feeling weak, I abused my family. When my wife, and later my children, would disagree with me, I attacked them to make me feel less weak. I felt if I couldn’t get them to fall in line, I was a weak husband and father. I shrank from conflict my whole life, and knew I should at least be able to control my family – but I felt small just by them having and expressing a different perspective or opinion. If I was weak to my family, how could I be strong at all?

In 2016 my entire life collapsed. I was an alcoholic, my health was failing, I had been terminated from my second executive position in 20 months, and my family was on the brink of separation. I controlled others because I felt as weak as I had on the middle school playground. No amount of external control, manipulation, or displays of strength ever fixed my internal weakness and self-doubt.

I decided that I needed to relearn how to live and accept that I didn’t have it all figured out. I learned the concept of personal power – mental confidence, emotional courage, and clarity of purpose. For 43 years I chased power on the outside, and I failed to ever fully understand that power is found inside – not in titles, income, accomplishments, family, external appearance, or anything else outside of your internal identity and acceptance of yourself. I began to see that when someone points to their external world as their source of significance and value, they are lacking something inside. I began to see why I never felt powerful or meaningful, and why I was easily bullied, manipulated, and controlled.

My power increased by daily physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual development. With that, others’ perceptions, words, and judgments became meaningless. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.

It’s all about them, not you

Here is a powerful spiritual concept for you to wrap your head around and embrace that will set you free: what others say about you or how they perceive you is 100 percent about their own life experiences, their own beliefs about themselves, and their filters, and zero percent about you. Their judgment is only about themselves because they can only perceive the world through their lens. Embrace that and you will see that no one can really hurt you unless you hand your power to them. That’s a choice you get to make.

Because I felt that I needed to defend myself against others, I attracted many people who attacked me. It ended when I realized I didn’t need to defend myself. Words and behaviors cannot hurt you unless you let them.

Introducing The Awakened Alpha

The Awakened Alpha is internally powerful, with internal mental confidence, emotional courage, and clarity of purpose. We no longer need to be angry in order to lead. In fact, internally powerful leaders create more intense relationships, and it’s those relationships that create true significance and impact. It’s time to lead. The days of alpha toughness are over. Words can never hurt us unless we allow others’ weaknesses to penetrate our weaknesses. Rise above the chaos. We’re better than that.

To connect with other leaders who desire the most from life, connect with the online membership community of leaders. We’d love to help you embrace your purpose, become intense and strong in living that purpose, and hold you accountable to becoming gentle with every other aspect of life. You deserve more, and so does your family.

The Stronger You Need to Appear, The Weaker You Are

I connect with audiences on social media. Platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn provide a ready-made outlet to deliver messages, videos, and articles to a pre-built audience, and from those messages and audiences, business naturally develops. I’ve sold courses, books, and even coaching programs on both of these outlets. I’m certainly not the only one. There are many coaches and businesses doing the same thing.

My coaching is certainly not for everyone, just like businesses cannot serve everyone. My business is best appreciated by male leaders who have achieved success and financial health, but still feel that something is missing. The something missing is often purpose, and a purpose – significance coupled with impact – is what most people desire at a soul level. But sometimes you need to attain everything outside of you that you want in the world, and still feel empty, in order to realize the deeper need for more. I had to learn the hard way that you can’t fill an internal emptiness with external achievement, possessions, or relationships.

Fulfillment is an inside-out game. I learned this after my internal emptiness led to a chase for wealth and possessions, and that chase eventually led to alcoholism, near-suicide, the near-collapse of my family, and termination from two executive positions in about 20 months. Every time I felt unhappy, I’d just buy something or go on a vacation, and when I’d outspent my income, I’d look for a promotion or a raise. None of this cured the primary pain I was trying to alleviate – the emptiness and unhappiness inside of me.

Hiding Behind My Possessions

I lived this way for the first 43 years of my life. I thought I hid it well, but years after my collapse I see more clearly; I was in pain, and I’m sure there were many people who knew it. I waved around my income, possessions, success as if they were my identity. Since they were all I had, I used these to show everyone that I was someone. There was a disconnect inside of me, and without these things, I truly felt like no one. Being a Marine veteran, I intimidated others into submission to try to deflect their attention away from who I really was – lost and afraid. If I could bully, belittle, or judge them enough, they’d think I was someone special. As if.

After my life collapsed and my wife, Angie, and I rebuilt everything from ashes, I began to see my pain. I had had zero self-esteem or self-respect. I recognized the empty feeling that I felt, which convinced me that I had to prove to others what I didn’t feel. It was all a ruse, a magic trick.

After Angie and I rebuilt everything, including a new coaching business, new successes began coming at us quickly and powerfully:

  • Our family healed.
  • We broke our addictions.
  • Our health healed.
  • Our marriage healed.
  • Our business grew.

Paving the Pathway for Others

Soon we knew that our story was providing the pathway for new levels of professional and financial success. We realized that we had a powerful story that could help people. We even documented our story in my first book, “The Imposter In Charge” (Stonebrook Publishing). Things came fast and furious.

In October of 2018, I recorded income of $44k, which was by far and away the most income I had ever witnessed in a single month. In fact, that month put my business in the black for the most money I had ever earned in a year – even in corporate America. I felt like I had arrived. I began to feel on top of the world, and I puffed out my chest like I was the most successful coach in the world.

My social media posts attacked coaches who were not as financially successful as I had been. I belittled struggling coaches, accusing them of having low self-esteem, being lazy, inept, or of hiding from their shadow. That one successful month revealed the shallow person who was still hiding inside. My shallow self was lying in the shadows. Even though I had done a ton of work up to that point to heal the judgment, anger, and pain inside, that single month of success triggered a dormant condition – low self-esteem and low self-respect. For some reason, I still felt like I needed to attack others to be worthy of success.

I Had Given My Away Power

November 2018 turned out to be my lowest income of that year, and it took me a long time to recover. It wasn’t until six or seven months later that I even sniffed that kind of success in a month of business. I spent those six to seven months realizing what had happened, and also realizing that I gave money too much of my own power. Instead of feeling a powerful sense of self-esteem and value, I realized that I only felt valuable when my income was high. Instead of feeling powerful inside, I gave all of my power to money, and my worth was still wrapped up in external things. That’s when things changed for good.

Seeing Myself In Others

Yesterday I was scanning LinkedIn and I came across a post by another business owner, and in this post, he ripped on “broke” business owners for not taking aggressive action, and his words were attacking and disparaging. Instead of offering tips or support to help them, he just ripped on them. I recognized his mind-set and heart-set from far away – his value and worth are wrapped up in his results. His business results are his value and worth. He attacked and this made him feel superior. His external results helped him overcome the internal lack of self-esteem he held. How do I know this? Because that was me. I know that guy well.

Lately, I have narrowed down – even further – the picture of those I enjoy working with most, and who are most successful in my programs. These guys are leaders. They are true innovators who not only carve out an authentic path but also look to bring as many people with them as possible. But these guys are unique because they know the difference between internal and external strength. External strength – the need to show off external strength – is just a cover-up for low self-esteem. Internal strength – self-worth derived from internal value – creates heart-based leaders who lead through love. These guys are sharp and powerful in their purpose, but gentle in everything else. These guys are on a mission but have nothing to prove to anyone. I want to work with these guys because they are real leaders. Together we can make an impact and truly make a difference in this world.

Take A Look Inside

I can recognize true power from a distance. Instead of forming an identity around their possessions, wealth, family, or their bodies, these guys form their identities around their internal value. They have nothing to prove. If these guys need to prove anything, they try to prove to themselves that they are somebody, and this is what drives them. So they need to flash that they are somebody whenever they feel it. Please understand there is a mental and emotional disconnect in these guys that can be resolved. But first, they might need to take a break from chasing externally to look where they’ve never looked – inside of themselves. If they ever look, they’ll see that they’ve been powerful all along. But since they were so busy showing off their power, they were giving clear signals that they were lost. Why can I recognize this? Those who were once lost can always spot their own.

If you feel lost or are always looking to find your power outside of yourself, connect with me. I can help. If you know you’re already powerful and want to fully experience your purpose and vision, connect with me. I can help you, too. If you attack this message because it exposed the low self-esteem you feel, I’ll talk to you later – after you realize you’ve been looking for your power in the wrong place. I hope you find it soon. Once you find your internal power, you’ll never need to prove anything to anyone else again – ever. You are all you’ll need.

I’d love to connect with you! Email me at mike@mikekitko.com or see my website at www.mikekitko.com for more information about me, my services, or my book, “The Imposter In Charge.”

Find Your Inner Compass

For 43 years, I settled. I separated life and work. I thought there was work time and off time. Work time meant that I would leave the place I wanted to be, and those I wanted to be around, to go a place I didn’t want to be to do something I didn’t want to do. After I was done being where I didn’t want to be, I would leave there and go back to the place I wanted to be. Work paid the bills and provided for my family and my role in their lives was doing things I hated – for their benefit. No matter how miserable I felt in this miserable cycle, my duty was to suck it up and carry out my miserable responsibility.

I was like the executive Joe six-pack. I accepted roles that paid the bills, felt like I was punching a salaried timeclock, and felt a sense of joy when I left work to come home. To add to that chaos, my home life was in disarray because my wife and kids were in the same miserable state. It was a reflection of my own misery, sacrifice, and turmoil. There wasn’t a whole lot of peace and harmony that was created from my duty. My home was a war zone of physical, mental, and emotional abuse – but I felt the nice house, cars, savings account, and frequent vacations made it all worth it.

No looking back

And then everything collapsed. My relationship with my wife fell into a state of pain and seemingly disrepair, my kids needed counseling, my health failed from physical neglect and alcoholism, and I lost two executive positions in 20 months because of my life’s chaos. Life and work were not separate and distinct. As my life crumbled, so did my ability to perform in my executive roles. It all fell apart at the same time, and I was suicidal. I was doubting everything I ever thought I knew about life. I had no idea who I was, what to do, and what life even meant. My entire world view was in jeopardy and doubt.

Looking back, it was the worst of times. But it was also the best of times. Since I had nothing, I got to revalue everything. Sure, I tried to retreat back into my familiar yet uncomfortable life of sacrificing myself for income, but that didn’t work either. I was unemployable and couldn’t find a job. No one would have me, and I didn’t blame them. I wouldn’t have hired me either.

I remember vividly reaching a point when I realized that I couldn’t go back to the life I knew. I reached a point where I figured out that I had nothing figured out. Everything I had learned about life got me to a suicidal state with nothing but a bunch of material possessions. In essence, I had nothing to lose. I was learning what I hadn’t learned up to that point: life is not about sacrificing myself for blocks of time followed by small segments of time waiting for the next block of sacrificial time. I decided to cast aside everything I had ever learned and begin living a life in line with my desires – my inner compass.

You have what it takes right now

In my book, The Imposter In Charge, I detail how our inner compass is our guidance system. We all possess talents, gifts, and an innate desire to serve and show up in life in a certain way. I believe every single individual on our planet of 7.7 billion people has their very own path carved out in their DNA, and most are rejecting or ignoring their own desires until they can’t feel them anymore. When they no longer feel a higher calling, they settle for a robotic, artificial life driven by programming, routine, and what they perceive they “should” be doing with their time. They numb their desires and destiny out of doubt and fear and live in the comfort of a small, unaligned life. My opinion is that most live in a state of delayed happiness, where they feel that peace, love, happiness, and joy will show up later when they have a certain material, relationship, amount of wealth, or even retirement. They have to have that future state to enjoy life.

Your inner compass is your guidance system for finding joy in each moment of the day. Your inner compass is telling you what will bring fulfillment now, not later, by helping you understand what experiences right now will create happiness in your life. The happiness we seek is never in future outcomes but in the delicious experiences of life right now. It’s in experiences, not outcomes, where the richness of life can be found.

For me, when I was in my executive roles, the only thing I ever enjoyed was developing my people and teams to perform at higher levels, and to empower them to aspire to heights beyond their current perspective. I spent hours in one-on-one conversations with my team members helping them discover the true essence of themselves and helping them align with their own talents so the business would succeed, and they would be fulfilled.

Designing my path

When I decided to reinvent myself, I cast aside everything else. I literally decided that material wealth was not more important than internal happiness and fulfillment. I went on a quest to determine how I wanted my relationship with my wife and kids to feel, what I wanted my daily schedule to look like, and what I wanted to show up in my health. My inner compass or GPS knew what I wanted, and I decided to accept nothing less. I began the process of eliminating everything else from my life that didn’t align. I moved down the path toward what I wanted. It might seem hard to do, but, trust me, it’s easier than you might think. You just need to be willing to lose things that don’t align – including who you think you are, and what you believe about life.

Once I decided what I wanted and began moving in that direction with nothing to lose, it all came quickly. Today, my rebuilt marriage is healthier than I ever thought it could be. My kids are healing from years of chaos, I help others find their own internal power, and I have created all of this with not a shred of sacrifice. I never have to do what I don’t want to do in order to do what I want to do. Neither do you. Your fear-based mind might convince you otherwise, but that doesn’t make it true.

There’s more to life than sacrifice and doing things you don’t enjoy. You don’t need to sacrifice to have what you want, and suffering is never the way to achieve the wealth, happiness, peace, and love you desire. The key to unlocking all you desire is in your inner guidance, and you just need to be courageous enough to desire your desires much more than the life your mind tells you that you must live.

I invite you to begin the process of evaluating the life you want to live. I’ve created a vision document to help you. If you’re open to more support, email me at mike@mikekitko.com. I have a variety of ways to support you!

Your inner compass is always pointing due north and holds the key to your life’s fulfillment and ease. Which direction you are walking is completely up to you, but it’s never too late to get back on the path that will create everything you’ve ever wanted.

Perfection is the Enemy of Progress

When I was in a corporate setting, I feared making mistakes. My identity was so wrapped up in the ideal, perfectionist view I had created for myself that I procrastinated on everything. I would coach my teams to “not let perfect get in the way of better,” but I wouldn’t always practice this myself. I feared judgement, criticism, and most of all being terminated because I was imperfect. This didn’t just show up in my career. My inadequacy and insecurity often paralyzed me and held me back in so many dimensions of my life. 

I am passionate about process improvement. I encourage others to take risks and move quickly, forgive others’ mistakes easily, and have no problem when others take action, learn, adjust, then follow up with more action. I just couldn’t do the same myself. It was a struggle moving myself into action. My corporate career hit a crescendo as an operations executive in a $350MM energy company, and finally crashed and burned when my entire life became paralyzed because of my inability to consistently move forward at the pace required. My crash was driven by inadequacy and insecurity which drove the impossibility of reaching perfection. 

Jumping in Feet First

When I decided to stop searching for another position in corporate, I decided to start my own business. When I launched my business, I was told that nothing in the world would grow me as much as embracing an entrepreneurial lifestyle. I was also told that I would need to launch many offerings to learn what the market desired from me, move before I was prepared, make lots of mistakes, adjust, and continue this process over and over on the way up. I was also advised that if I didn’t follow this route, my entrepreneurial ventures would crash and burn just like my corporate career. 

Because of this advice I made my first offer to create a training session for a business owner without having anything prepared, closed my first sale, and delivered the training. From that single training I signed two one-on-one clients, and this was the start of my coaching business. I took action before I was ready, I delivered without massive amounts of practice, and adjusted that same training for the next time. My business grew rapidly, and I signed a whole array of private coaching clients. 

Insecurity Keeps You From Progressing

About a year into my new career I hired an operations manager. I slid all of my prepared content across the table—hundreds of pages of workbooks and training—so that she could see what I had created. Up to this point, I had not used any of the content. I am a content creating machine, but I was too fearful to share with anyone because I knew it wasn’t perfect. It was not edited or deemed final. Because of my inadequacy or insecurity, I’m not sure if I would have ever used any of it. I just kept it hidden until someone else I trusted would review it. 

My operations manager looked at all the content and said, “We’ve got a course here!”

“We do?” I asked with surprise and a hint of excitement.

“We’ll put this module first, then this module, then this module…,” and she went on to compile a full course with what was already created. 

With shock I said, “Do you think it’s good enough?”

“It’s plenty good,” she replied immediately. 

“Do we need to edit it?” I asked fearing a reply. 

“No. We’ll let the students edit it for us,” she responded with certainty. 

Over the coming weeks she put together the course details, description, and delivery method. We announced the “pilot program” for my new Life-Mastery course about two weeks after our first discussion, and made sure prospects knew that they would be part of the fine-tuning process. We priced it a pilot-level and announced to the prospects that the price for the second iteration of the course would double. We targeted 12 students and filled every seat.

The Powerful Tool of Feedback

During the pilot course we solicited feedback, students pointed out holes and gaps in the curriculum, content, and how we could improve the experience. We made changes immediately, implemented improvements, and during the pilot we announced the second launch at a price double the first. The pilot students were excited to be part of the improvements, and we made sure to inform them of the changes we were making because of their feedback. At the end of the pilot we sent out feedback forms, and the feedback was amazing! We launched an imperfect offering, communicated the imperfections, solicited feedback, and made changes along the way. Our students’ lives shifted because of the course and our business grew as well. Everyone won because we launched, learned, and adjusted.

Today the course has been modified from its original form and is even more powerful. It keeps getting better because I was able to overcome the need to be perfect. I have launched an Entrepreneurial-Mastery course in the same manner, and students created powerful shifts because of that content as well. Entrepreneurism will grow you more than any other aspect of life. It drives you to step out in uncertainty and create certainty along the way. This takes embracing imperfection as part of the journey toward learning what works and what does not. An entrepreneur can’t learn or make a sale by creating a business plan, building programs, or sitting on the sidelines. 

Create the Life You Desire

If you are reading this, you are growth oriented and desire to expand your life’s circumstances. To create the life you desire, you must be willing to lose parts of your life, story, and identity that have created those current circumstances. Perfectionism is driven by inadequacy and insecurity—and those traits can cause you to shrink from challenges in life that will serve you and bring you what you desire. But you must be willing to overcome your need to get it right all the time. That is impossible. Just embrace imperfect as the perfect state. 

My need for perfection ultimately ended my corporate career. Thank the heavens. So for that I am thankful. There was a benefit to my desire to show up perfectly— it enabled and empowered failure and made me start over. I expect to fail at least three times per day from now on. I’ve learned and grown more from failure than I ever have from success. If you’re not failing, you’re not trying. If you’re not adjusting and remaining persistent you’ll never succeed. And success is the greatest way to create more opportunities to failure. Imperfection is the way to all you desire!

 

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