The Inner Wealth Podcast

Ep229. Nature Has Cycles, Rhythms, and Seasons — So Do You.

• Mike Kitko

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In this episode, Mike reflects on the final stretch of 2025 — a year marked by intensity, and now, exhaustion. After running hot from August through early November, the season shifted, and life asked him to slow down, recover, and honor the deeper rhythms at play. This episode is an invitation to listen to your body, feel the energetic cycles, and stop trying to turn winter into summer.

Key Takeaways

  1. You Are Always in a Season — Whether You Realize It or Not
    When you learn to live in tune with the energy around you, resistance disappears.
  2. Most of Us Try to Force Summer in the Middle of Winter
    The grind mindset disconnects you from your body, your truth, and your spiritual rhythm.
  3. Each Season Has a Role: Spring Plants, Summer Grows, Fall Harvests, Winter Rests
    Your business, body, and soul follow the same cycles — when you let them.
  4. Burnout Happens When You Ignore the Season You’re In
    Pain and sickness are often messages from the body that you're out of sync.
  5. Goal Setting Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All
    If goals light you up, great. If they drain you, there's another way to move forward.

Notable Quotes

  • “The only decision that I had to make was do I honor the natural cycles and seasons of life and allow kind of winter to set in? Or do I try to fight it and turn winter back into summer?”
  • “Nature has cycles and nature has seasons.”
  • “Most people try to fight life. They try to force life. They try to wrestle life to the ground. They try to dominate life.”
  • “Whatever feels aligned for you, do it. Whatever feels unaligned for you, let it go and release it.”
  • “Once you find that, you can let go of all the grind and the hustle and align with your soul's natural instincts and intuition.”

Call to Action

📘 Inner World, Outer World — Available now on Amazon
Spiritual alignment starts in the nervous system. This is the map.
👉 Get the Book

🎧 Free Meditation Bundle
Drop into the season you're in. Breath. Feel. Trust.
👉 Download for Free

👥 Message Mike Directly
Need help honoring where you are? Reach out.
📧 mike@innerwealthglobal.com


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

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Mike Kitko is an executive self-mastery coach, speaker and author. He found external success through powerful titles, incomes, and material possessions. He ultimately fell into depression, toxic abuse of alcohol, and the near collapse of his family before he began a journey of internal happiness and success.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you ever wake up feeling like there's something missing in your life? Do you ever feel the need to escape your business? Are you running your life or is your life running new? I'm like, you want to help you design and create a life so authentic and aligned with who you really are. You'll get excited just to wake up. I'll help you create real wealth, success, and freedom from the inside out. Welcome to the Inner Wealth Podcast, where we learn and choose to live inspired each and every day.

SPEAKER_01:

This could be a five-minute podcast episode. It could be a 35-minute podcast episode. I don't know how long it's gonna go. And and I know the direction we're gonna go, and I know the message that I've I have to share, but I am in a season, and you can you can probably hear uh my voice if you're that familiar with my voice. I'm I'm congested, um nasally. Uh the other day I woke up in the middle of the night and I was coughing, and it felt like my lungs were literally on fire, my chest was on fire, and uh some sicknesses set in. And that's part of the story of why this might only be a five-minute episode. I don't know. But let's talk first, let's let's talk about this year. This year has been a challenging year. Last year in 2024, we had it, we had a great year. It this um the business, it was the the best, uh, the best revenue generating year the uh that we've ever had, and it was impactful and the the business thrived and our students thrived and and uh and 2025 has been challenging. And uh I know a lot of I know some business owners that have grown and expanded in 2025, but I also know a lot of people that uh they they they started shedding, and 2025 was the Chinese zodiac year of the snake, so it was a year of shedding. But you know, uh we're entering, we're going into a new year here in the next month or so. Um, and there's gonna be a different energy and a different flavor. But 2025, for all intents and purposes, in in my experience and in the experience of some of the people that I'm working with, 2025, the energy of 2025 was was very challenging. And a lot of things that that were uh the whole point of the year of the snake is is for things that are no longer aligned or things that have expired for them to peel away. And I definitely see that. Holy cow, it's been definitely been a year of shedding. But when it back in August, I if I look from August to early November, we we I ran absolutely hot. So it started with my book launch, August 19th. Then we immediately, which which was awesome, we had a great book launch celebration, and and I got I got awesome feedback on the work. And I I still see people sharing my uh my book on on if you haven't gotten a copy, um, Inner World, Outer World. It's available on Amazon. Uh, it's a fantastic book. There's one of my friends, um, Joe Roney, said that uh it it he's read hundreds of books and it's in his top three. So that was a that was a huge honor. And Joe, if you're listening, brother, I love you, man. I I I appreciate you, and I I thank you for sharing me with uh with your network and with your world. But um we immediately went from book launch to uh an intensive, the uh the August uh choose your destiny live intensive. And those things are, you know, it's first of all, it's two days, but it's I I give a lot. There's a lot of energy spent, there's a lot of uh a lot of impact in the room, and and it's been a it's a growth mechanism for our our business, and and it's a way for people to come and be introduced to my work and and our work and our business and our community, and some of my mastermind students are there, and and it it was it was a great event in August. It was a they keep getting better every one, every iteration. And and in September, I flew down to New Orleans to uh hang out with uh with my friend Josh, and he had a a mastermind meetup, and I got to uh participate in that with him, and then I flew back and we we went to uh we went to uh Park City, Utah uh with our mastermind, and we we went on a retreat and it was awesome. It was a fantastic event, and it was just it's like in August started this, it catalyzed just one opportunity, one experience after another after another. And it's like we would Angie and I would get back from somewhere, and a couple days later we're packing bags, going somewhere else, or doing something else, or or having another event, or whatever. It was just from August 19th until probably the first week, maybe, maybe somewhere around November 11th and 12th, I think it was. But somewhere in there or that time period, we just ran hot and fast and it was intense. And that was a season in our life. That was a season, it was a window. And after uh our in our our last our November intensive, Angie and I took some time and we went down to Cancun. And when we when we uh we spent five days down there to kind of recover from the workshop because it's energy draining, and which we hadn't done back in August. And uh when we got back three days later, we we flew with our daughter to Baltimore, my hometown of my original hometown of Baltimore, to to kind of hang out with our daughter. She had never spent uh any significant time in Baltimore, and we took her to some of our favorite places, and we took her to a Ravens game on Thanksgiving night, and it was just a great experience. But part of us when we were in Cancun, you know, didn't want to go to Baltimore, and part of us just wanted to be home, just in, you know, and we started getting the signals that we needed to restore. We started getting those signals. We started not resisting, we just what we we signed up or we we kept going with what we signed up for and what we had agreed to, but we started getting these signals in our bodies that that we needed to recover, that we needed some time to restore, that we needed to, we were depleted and we needed to go into recovery mode. But we didn't immediately honor that. We went to Cancun, went to Baltimore, and when we came home from Baltimore, it's almost like we just completely downshifted. And we went into almost like hibernation, where I still honor some, you know, my mastermind meetings, my mastermind sessions and my community session, those on my calendar. And I still have a few meetings sprinkled out throughout the week and a few calls sprinkled out throughout the week. But outside of things that that are already on my calendar, it's almost like I'm signing up for nothing else. I am, and I have been in a period of restoration and recovery. And uh Angie and I almost like sailing into the end of the year and and coasting. And and look, it uh you guys know if you've listened to this for any period of time, I am not a grind guru in hustle whore. I am not gonna want to be one of those guys that tell you, you have to show up all the time. It's the end of the year, finish strong. And and look, if that shit lights you up, that's awesome, but that's definitely not what I'm about. And the people that I connect with most uh deeply, you know, they they don't they're not always fighting life either. Okay. They they kind of go with the flow of life and surrender to life and and and feel into the energy of the season. And that's that's what I really want to talk about. Seasons. Because from August 19th until November 11th, 12th, that was a season. And right after that, there was another season that we were embarking on, but we didn't immediately honor it. And now we're kind of I'm kind of paying the price for it, and you can hear it in the sickness. Listen, nature has cycles and nature has seasons. And if you if you go out in the middle of the summer and it's hot, really hot in St. Louis, it gets up to you know 95 degrees and 95% humidity, and it's sticky and muggy and thick. And I love that. That that's when that's when my body thrives in that. And you can go out in the middle of the summer when it's really, really hot, and you can hate the sun. And you can try as hard as you can to make it go away and to make it cool off, but it's not gonna work because that's kind of what the summer is about. That's what that season is about. It's about it's about heating up the earth, heating up our hemisphere. Let's just let's say that. And and in the winter, I'm not a huge fan of really cold weather, but in the winter, when it's really cold, and it's already snowed, you know, six, seven inches here in the St. Louis area, even this early in the season. But you you can go out in the middle of winter when when it's snowing and when it's cold, and you can really hope and you can really struggle mentally and emotionally to try to get the sun to come out and heat up and be warm, but it's not gonna work because that's winter is a season, and nature runs on cycles and seasons. Okay. When you look at the weather and you look at the seasons of our our earth, there are four primary seasons. There's spring, summer, fall, and winter, obviously. But they each do something different to the areas that it impacts. Spring is a time for rejuvenation, for planting seeds, for tilling the soil, for for making the earth again ready to grow, to grow a harvest. That's when farmers go out and and till the till the fields, fertilize the fertilize the ground. This is when plants start to to bloom again. This is when fat flowers start to start to grow again. This is when the earth beautifies, because it's been dormant for the last few months from winter. And that's what spring, that's what the season of spring is about. It's about preparing the earth and preparing everything and planting seeds, knowing that those seeds are not immediately going to grow, but they will grow if we just prepare the soil in a way that creates a healthy environment to grow. And then as the earth continues to heat up, we move into summer, and the sun intensifies and pours heat and energy into the world, and it creates almost like a greenhouse where there's moisture and there's humidity and there's temperate climates, and there's a just the nurturing of those seeds, and and summer is a time for patience, for growth, for things to expand, things to grow, not quite yet ready to be recognized and harvested. But you can start to see the signs in the spring. You can't always see the signs of growth because it's happening under the surface. But in the summer, you start to understand and you start to see the evidence of things growing in your life, and throughout summer, the growth happens, and then that prepares the plants for fall. And fall is the time of harvest, it's the time for collecting and making good on all the work both you and the earth has done over the last two seasons. And and you get to go in, you get to benefit from all of the work, and you get to fill your bushel baskets with with vegetables, and you get to you get to really taste the fruit of all your labor because the work is done and the rewards are are reachable. There you you can grasp them, you can you can hold them, you can see them, you can taste them, you can enjoy them. And then we store some of those up for winter. And then in the fall, things begin to die, leaves start to fall, colors change, the the vibrancy and the vitality of the earth goes away, and the skies start to darken, and that turns into winter, and then the sun loses its its immediate intensity and heat, and you can still see the sun, but the rays of the sun are not as quite as intense because the earth is cooling and and nothing grows in the winter, but underneath the soil, the earth is naturally preparing itself for the next cycle, naturally preparing itself for the next season. Winter is a time for restoration and regeneration and rebirth and and growth underneath in the foundation of the soil. And winter, even though it looks like nothing's happening, a lot is happening under the surface. Because without winter, without the cold, the fields won't be ready next year to nurture the growth that is part of this the natural seasons and cycles of life. And after winter, when the earth has gone through a and soil has gone through a regeneration process and a restoration process, then it becomes spring again and the cycle starts again. And it becomes time for tilling the fields and for planting seeds so that the cycle resumes. Guys, we're coming to the end of 2025. And my body and Angie's body started shutting down somewhere around mid-November. Okay. And I don't mean shutting down in an unhealthy way. I'm talking about literally my body started asking for a downshift. And in some cases, it's like you start to fight it, unconsciously fight it. No, I've got to grow the business. No, I've got to add new clients. No, I've got to do something. And you know what? 2025 has been a year of shedding, not of growth for me and my business. The Chinese zodiac, right? The year of the snake. And the only decision that I had to make was do I honor the natural cycles and seasons of life and allow kind of winter to set in? Or do I try to fight it and turn winter back into summer? And this is ultimately why I got sick, because I was fighting the the current, I was fighting the season, I was fighting nature, and now I'm I'm fully surrendering to the lesson. It's time to time to let go. It's time to just let the the earth cool to hibernate, to restore, to regenerate, and to allow the next season to be the beginning of growth. As we go into the end of 2025, there's going to be a lot of people talking about getting off to a fast start in 2026 or finishing 2025 strong. And what I what I would encourage you to do is don't necessarily listen to what they are telling you. Listen to your intuition and your in instincts and understand what your body and what life is asking of you. And I would also invite you to make that a daily part of everything that you do. What is your soul? What is your body? What is your intuition? And what is your life asking of you? And check in from that place. Don't get caught up in the in the grind gurus and hustle whores that think that life needs to be fought, battled, resisted. And if you're not struggling, you're not doing it right. Don't get caught up in that. Whatever feels aligned for you, do it. Whatever feels unaligned for you, let it go and release it. On the Interwealth Mastermind call this morning, we talked about goal setting and and what goal setting right now looks like. If you are built to set and to strive for goals. When I in the Choose Your Destiny Live Intensive, we do some vision work. And what we're doing with the vision work is to set a direction for the course of our life. Not an outcome to attain, but set an energetic direction for our life so that we and our life can start moving that way. But you know what? At some point, and every once in a while, you have to check in saying, I know where I want the energy in my life going. I know where I want the direction of my life going. But what is life asking from me? And from the answer to that question, you'll understand what season you're in. Okay? Right now, at the end of 2025, if you're in a slowdown season, honor it. If you're in a speed up season, honor it. And the way you know if you're in this season is because it's fulfilling, because there's no resistance, and because it inspires you to act or to not act. Always live from that level of alignment because that's what we're looking for. We're looking for alignment with our design, with our purpose, and with our ultimate soul's destiny. Once you find that, you you can let go of all the grind and the hustle and align with your soul's natural instincts and intuition. It'll always take you in the right direction.

SPEAKER_00:

If you enjoyed what you heard and you want to learn more, go to www.innerwealthglobal.com for more tools and resources.