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Mike Kitko

Unlock your true potential

Be A Rebel

 

Just Be You

The greatest act of rebellion that a single human being can possibly demonstrate in this lifetime is to fully be yourself.  Fully embrace your authenticity, talents, gifts, and desires to fully impact the world in your special, unique way.

The educational, political, and economic systems were all set up so you become just like everyone else. From the time that we were little kids, we were put on a cookie press, and we were pressed into the exact same figurine over and over and over.  We were taught to think, be, and behave like everyone else.

The greatest act of rebellion that you could execute and lean into is to just be YOU.

Life Loves You

Life loves you. It really does. Life’s your biggest fan. Your prayers are already answered.

You might not believe it, but life wants the very best for you, and life wants you to have whatever you want.

If you don’t have what you want it’s because you don’t trust life.

And it’s lack of trust in life that makes life so difficult.

Just stop fighting.

Let life prove to you just how much you’re loved and just how valuable you are.

When I was young I didn’t trust myself, others, or life, and was scared of everything because of extreme self-doubt.

As I got older and ignored these things, the insecurity, fear, self-doubt, and lack of trust in myself grew and intensified…

And I chased wealth, materials, and other things to try to make those feelings stop.

I even tried to eat and drink myself out of pain and became a 300-pound, suicidal alcoholic with no self-worth or self-value.

When I decided that I had enough and was exhausted from running, I turned the spotlight inward and that’s when I began to heal and realized all of those feelings were false.

That’s when I realized that by feeling and embracing them instead of running from and trying to escape them, they would dissolve.

As the lack of trust, insecurity, and self-doubt dissolve, new clarity, courage, and confidence take their place.

Nothing outside of me can resolve those lower-level feelings and conditions.

But to stop running and feeling and understanding all of them made all the difference.

Everything you want is already inside of you.

It’s the fight you’re fighting that’s keeping everything just out of reach.

But it’s right there waiting for you to trust and allow.

You’ve never needed to fight.

And the most difficult work you’ll ever experience is just giving up the addiction to fight for what’s already yours.

What Are You Allowing?

One time I was asked to counsel and provide support for a group of business partners. They were struggling to align in the vision for their business and in their trust of one another.
Within seconds of my introduction, one of the partners immediately began to challenge my credibility and questioned why he should listen to me.
Without hesitating, I challenged his level of respect, his lack of tact, and how he showed up in an undignified manner. I challenged him and asked how this was showing up in his relationships and his business results.
I made sure he knew I wasn’t going to be pushed around and shrink.
I told him that his business had problems that he didn’t know how to fix and that I did. I said that he could either increase his respect level and I would stay, or he could continue his lack of respect and I would leave them with their problem that they couldn’t solve, but that I was confident I could.
I gave him the choice, and he invited me to continue.
After a few hours of teaching, coaching, and adding value, that same partner invited me back to continue working with them. He recognized my value and we became close allies. If I would have allowed him to shrink me, he wouldn’t have appreciated my talents and skills.
He challenged me because he was testing my boundaries. At that moment he became a bully. Bullies don’t like to be bullied, so when I pushed back, he relented. We made magic after that and they’re still getting value on the work we did together. He’s a really good guy at heart.
The world treats you the way you allow it to, and according to the way you perceive yourself.
Don’t blame others. Shift how you feel about yourself.
Show up, and stand up for yourself. The respect level others have for you will instantly increase. It’s not disrespectful to honor yourself and your value, it’s the most loving thing you do for yourself and others.

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.

 

Master You

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.

 

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.

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Are you a small business owner who is ready to create time freedom, financial freedom, and the freedom to fully be yourself? Download my FREE Life By Design eBook and get started immediately!

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