5 Must-Read Books If You’re In The “Messy Middle” Stage of Business

I'm Kinsey Machos, your host and founder of the category Queen. Welcome to the podcast for coaches, consultants, and course creators who don't just want to dominate their niche, but they desire to play in their own league. My mission is to help you unlock the power of your unique brilliance and use it as a vehicle to gain recognition, reach more people, and make more money. Not too long ago, I took a bold leap, leaving behind a six figure corporate salary with nothing more than a used MacBook and a burning desire for more freedom. Today, our brand has become globally recognized, helping thousands of female founders to become industry leading experts. Join us each week as we go on a journey together to discuss mindset, marketing and money, and more importantly, the real life discussions about balancing success with motherhood and marriage.

Because we're a community of women who build and scale impact driven businesses, but do it without sacrificing the things that matter most to us. Welcome to the category queen show. Hello my friends. Welcome back to the show. I hope you are having such an amazing day so far. We are finally coming into amazing weather. It's been cold and dark. I even posted on instagram the other day that I went for my morning walk in May, and I'm still wearing my ski jacket, gloves, a beanie, and I know I I run cold. I'm always cold. But I mean, 35 degrees, that's cold. So today it's in the seventies. It's beautiful. I just went for another walk and I am excited about this.

I feel like I talk about the weather all the time, but maybe I'm going to commit to not talking about the weather for the next few episodes. But anyhow, let's talk about today's topic, which is books you must read if you are in a season of stuck or you're in that messy middle season of business, even life, and you need some sort of just pick me up or guidance or words that will feel inspiring to you. This is always where I turn when I'm just needing to get out of a funk. I have gotten better at always sort of like collecting opinions.

So one of the things I want to mention here before I move into the books is that when you're in this season, the natural tendency is to look outside yourself and talk to a lot of people about the challenges you're having, which is important, but to also solicit feedback. And this is a really dangerous game to play. And so one of the things that I want you to really pay attention to is quieting the noise and really monitoring your inputs. Whose advice or recommendations are you allowing in? How is it impacting how you think and feel? And how are you going to, you know, put on a filter to ensure that you are honoring your unique desires, your goals, your life as it is in, like, really thinking about what is next for you.

And so while I want you to seek mentorship, seek guidance, sometimes that can muddy the things a little bit more. And so even picking up a book, I think that it's different when somebody knows you and they're giving you advice through their own lens, right? That's opinion based feedback. But when you read a book, it's kind of objective because the author doesn't know you. You don't know the author, but you can read the words and you have your unique experiences and your unique situation as the lens. And so it's just going to speak to you in a way that still allows you to make your own judgments and really allow your soul to be led into that next step. I think that's the power in really great books. So these are my top five books that I recommend.

You must read now, you don't need to go to Amazon and order all of them, although you can. But as I go through each book, I'm going to read a little excerpt that really stuck out to me. I'm going to tell you why this is an effective book for you if you're in a season of messy middle or stuck. And you can decide of these five which would be a good one to start with based on where you're at. And again, I have found such immense encouragement in all five of these books in feeling either, again, stuck or in that sort of darkness.

You know, when you're kind of in that belly, you're in the belly of the whale and you don't think you're moving, you don't know where you're going, but you know something's happening and all that unknown creates a lot of extra anxiety and stress. Well, guess what, friend? I've been there so many times, and I'm here to tell you that you're not weird for going through this. There's nothing wrong with you, but sometimes just nurturing that soul with a really great book that can speak to your heart can sometimes just completely transform how you experience it. Will it speed it up? Maybe. Will it give you clarity? Maybe. But all in all, really allowing yourself to feel seen and heard is so important. So let's talk about the first book. This is the big leap by gay Hendricks.

Now, I've actually talked about this book on a previous podcast episode, because it's all about your upper limits. Now, all my clients, I recommend reading this book, and they'll typically, this will be one of the first books they read. And I'm telling you, it is always such incredible breakthroughs that they have through reading this book. Now, why is this important? Well, a lot of the times we will find ourselves in a season of either feeling stuck or frustrated because there's an upper limit issue. And upper limits are really internal subconscious barriers that are preventing you from achieving your highest success. And most people don't even know that these exist. And you definitely don't know yet. It's likely that you don't know yet what they look or feel like.

And so when you start to understand these upper limit problems, you will notice them show up in your life. And so you can move through them instead of letting them self sabotage, which is the cycle that these upper limits create. So what happens is when we have these upper limits, and gay Hendrix actually breaks them out into four core upper limits, and you can self identify which one you really resonate with. But once you start to identify those, then what happens is you can start to see, like, oh, I'm getting this particular result because of this self imposed barrier, which is, it feels crazy or it sounds crazy, but once you read the book, it'll all make sense to you. Now, let me read to you what gay Hendricks says here.

He says there is something important you should know about the upper limit problem. When you attain higher levels of success, you often create personal dramas in your life that cloud your world with unhappiness and prevent you from enjoying your enhanced success. This is the upper limit problem at work. In other words, the upper limit problem crosses the boundaries of money, love, and creativity. If you make more money, your upper limit problem may kick in and create a situation that causes unhappiness, ill health, or something else that blocks your enjoyment of your enhanced money supply. If you meet and marry the love partner of your dreams, your upper limit problem may kick in and cause setbacks in your financial life. In short, if you have a tendency to follow big leaps forward in your success with big mess ups, so good, right?

So you might right away resonate with some of that. If you don't, totally, okay. But I know that sometimes I find myself in the same seasons that I'm in because of this very thing. And so it's important to really assess for yourself what that might look like. And he does a really good job at breaking out the different upper limits and helping you understand how to identify them and then move through them. Now, the second book I recommend is the untethered soul by Michael a. Singer. Now, this was one of the first mindset books that I had read in my earlier phases of personal development and it was so profound to me and I actually just read it for a second time.

And it's really fun to see what I highlighted before, what resonated with me then, and then what resonated, you know, what I'm highlighting now and what resonates with me now. And I actually was just talking to a client about this and I think that's the value of buying hard like physical copies of books. I've never been an audio book listener. I have to have the tangibility around it and really sinking into the principles and foundations of that book. So these books, I 100% recommend buying the physical copy because you're going to want to highlight things and I love to reference these things just as reminders. But also when I reread a book, it's just such a good reminder and point of reflection of where I was used to be and how far I have come. So the untethered soul is such a beautiful book.

And really, when we think about mindset, it's really about the awareness of your thoughts, which is obviously something that we talk about all the time here on the podcast because this is one of the biggest elements that you have to sit into and acquire as far as skills go as an entrepreneur or as a woman that wants to love her life. It all starts with understanding who you are, how you think, and how that impacts your life. And Michael Singer really dives into this self awareness piece and starting to really encourage you to ask yourself the question, who am I? But this, I'll read you this excerpt from the book because it's going to give you a little bit more color of what to expect when reading the pages within the untethered soul.

He says, if you want to free yourself, you must first become conscious enough to understand your predicament. Then you must commit yourself to the inner work of freedom. You do this as though your life depended on it, because it does as it is right now. Your life is not your own. It belongs to your inner roommate, the psyche. You have to take it back, stand firm in the seat of the witness, and release the hold that the habitual mind has on you. This is your life. Reclaim it. Oh, I just get chills even reading that, because again, the power that you can take back or really sit into when you start to do this work in the way that it needs to be done.

And bringing this into your daily practice, every life, it's going to give you the techniques of really letting go of the thoughts that are not serving you, the emotions that are not serving you, and getting you unblocked. Because whether you want personal progress or professional progress, it all starts with that self awareness. The third book that I recommend, if you're feeling stuck or you're in that messy middle season, is when you're ready. This is how you heal by Brianna Wiest. Okay, my friends, like, I can't. This is the book that I just finished. I binged it. Okay. Now, normally, if you've been around for a while, you know that I read several books at a time and I don't binge read very often. I think the last book that I really binge read was ten x is easier than two x.

And then I think before that was probably breaking the habit of being yourself, which I'm going to talk about here in a minute. But this was one of those. And I feel like I could have literally written this book. It was. The book is so amazingly. It's just, I have no words other than, if you don't know where to start, I would start here. This is really about emotional healing through self acceptance and resilience. And I think that's where I feel so seen in the words of this book is because it's really about developing that resilience in business and in life. And when you want to live out your true desires, you have to develop a different level of that resilience. And the way that she writes it's so good because it's kind of chopped up into mini segments, all with an underlying theme.

And so it's a really easy read. But I want to read you an excerpt from this because it's so powerful. She says there is nowhere we can turn to that is an escape from ourselves. It's time to start over, and it's time to begin right here. Weed out what's dead in your life. Nourish the garden around your soul. Start where you are and with what you have. Stand on what you've built. Close the gaps in your own foundation. Strengthen what already exists. Deepen your roots and spread your branches wide. Then see how you feel. Oh, so good, right? So Brianna Wiest has written several books. One of her other really popular ones is the Mountain is you, which I also bought. I just haven't read it yet, but I've had several friends recommend that as well.

But I'm telling you, this book has completely changed so much in me. It's one of those books where, like, literally every page I have highlighted, I'm like, I should have just highlighted the whole page or the whole book, but such a powerful book. Also, if you don't follow her on Instagram, she's a good one to follow. This is all going back to even what I said earlier about monitoring your inputs, because when you're in a season of feeling stuck, you're already feeling pretty cloudy, right? You are questioning your decisions. You're wondering what's next in, you're doubting yourself. You're in immense fear. And so when we have inputs that are actually just adding to that, we're just going to continue to spin. And so I just want you to be really careful about what you allow in.

And that's why I was really selective about the books I recommend here because, again, I think that they do such a good job at speaking to you in a way that is going to meet you exactly where you are. It's not going to muddy things up for you. It's just going to provide a little bit of a lift and or clarity so that you can keep moving forward. Okay, let's talk about book number four. And I referenced it just a minute ago, but this is breaking the habit of being yourself by Doctor Joe Dispenza. So this is just another fascinating book, but it's very different in the book by Brianna Wiest. So Brianna Wiest talks about emotional healing. And a lot of doctor Joe DiSpenza's work is around that. But he's a scientist. Like, the work that he does is very scientific.

And so if it's not necessarily, quote unquote, an easy read, if you will, because he goes into the depth. He talks about the quantum field. There's a lot of science. He approaches the brain and the heart. He approaches all of these concepts that you've likely heard before, right? The thought work, the emotions results. He approaches all of that from a deeper layer more through the science of it. But I, again, this is another book that completely changed my life. And it's not that I didn't know these concepts, but he just really lays it out in a way that makes sense. And it's really about understanding your nervous system, understanding your emotions. And it's not enough to, quote unquote, do the mindset work because there's a whole component to the body, right?

You have your head work and then you have your heart work and you have to understand that sometimes your body is actually leading you and you don't even know it. Maybe for the bad, right? Maybe for the word in a good way. And so this breaking the habit of being yourself is really about this theme of, like, if you want to achieve new things in your life, you have to become someone different than you are today. I say this all the time. It's one of my favorites theories and concepts, because entrepreneurship is literally just that is becoming someone new. And it's the most painful experience. And I believe it's probably the thing that keeps people stuck and or, you know, has them giving up on their dreams.

But helps you really see what's happening in the mind, in theart, helps you see what's happening in the body, gives you tools to really help you change your life and to break those destructive patterns, because right now, you're just operating the same way you've always known how to operate. And so if you stay there, you're just going to keep producing the same results. And so it's not enough to just change a thought. You actually have to change the rhythm of your body. And so again, he goes into a lot of description so you understand it. And if you're like me, it helps me to understand the science behind it because it makes more sense sometimes some of these more quote unquote woo things can be kind of out there or feel a little ambiguous. But he is showing, literally scientific data around these elements.

And I have just really loved all of his work. I've gotten a little bit deeper into a lot of the tools and resources that he produces, and I just really love reading his articles and his work. So I think that if you, if this is resonating with you, I would definitely pick up this book, but I'll read you an excerpt, because I think that, again, this is where you can decide, like, is this something that I can start now, or should I wait? But I would 100% recommend at least adding this to your reading list. He says, to change, be greater than your environment, your body, and time. Most people focus on three things in life, their environment, their bodies, and time. They don't just focus on these three elements, they think equal to them.

But to break the habit of being yourself, you have to think greater than the circumstances of your life, be greater than the feelings that you have memorized in your body, and live in a new line of time. He also goes on to talk about this idea that, you know, even Albert Einstein says, we cannot solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created it. And so, again, if your mind and body is just doing the same thing that it's always done, you're just going to produce the same thing that you always have. So we have to think differently, become differently, feel differently, regardless of the circumstances. And what most people do is they look outside of themselves to define what they can or can't do or who they should or shouldn't be.

And so this book really helps you unravel that contrast and move into momentum in such a bigger way. And then lastly, book number five is the gap in the game by Dan Sullivan and Doctor Benjamin Hardy. Now, you know me, I'm a huge fan of Doctor Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan. And recently, Doctor Benjamin Hardy just is coming out with his brand new book, just him rapid transformation. I went through his rapid transformation series live with him, and it was so incredible, really just a true genius. But his background is psychology, and so he has this way of describing this type of work that it makes sense, but also, if we have sort of the backing of, like, data or science, it just helps us kind of sink into it a little bit more.

But the gap in the gain focuses on the psychological efforts of focusing on the distance between where you are and where you want to be versus the gain recognizing the value of progress. So most people are only focused on the gap. They're only focused on what they don't have, where they aren't in their results, what's not happening, what's not working. And this whole book is about shifting to training your mind to focus on what is working. And I have known about this book for a really long time, but I didn't read it until about probably, I don't know, six or nine months ago. Because when someone explained it to me, I was like, well, you just told me the book. It was like, well, I understand. I was like, okay, I just got to focus on the gain versus the gap.

But I finally picked up the book because of just how much I've really been drawn to doctor Benjamin Hardy's message. And it's so much more than that. And sometimes when we are feeling stuck or we're in that messy middle season, it could be just because you are focusing on all the wrong things. But even if you're not, one of the things that's going to get you out of that stage faster is to learn how to train yourself, how to focus on the gain. And this is a skill that you will have to continue to strengthen and develop as an entrepreneur, as a woman who wants to completely change her life because you will be unhappy if you're only ever focused on the gap. And as humans, that's just our natural default.

So in this book, you're going to be given tools for measuring success in a way that motivates you in a way that you can sustain momentum. And I think that I overlooked this ability because even just me saying out loud, you might be thinking like, oh, I'm okay. I'll just start, you know, focusing on what's working. But you will notice that in every moment, your brain is going to want to go back to that tendency. And so you just have to continue to become more aware of it and practice these tools that he gives you in your day to day life. He says, get off the gap treadmill. And he quotes Bob Marley here by saying, the day you stop racing is the day you win the race. He goes on to say, measuring yourself against an ideal is an endless race to nowhere.

That ideal could be in the form of a hope or an expectation. It could be a comparison with something or someone else, quote unquote, her raise was bigger than my raise. Being in the gap stops you from living within your own experience. It stops you from appreciating where you are. It stops you from being happy. So, good, right? And again, you might be reading that and thinking, gosh, that's so basic. But yet, if you're feeling stuck right now, it's likely that you are feeling lack. Maybe there's a fear of money, a fear of success. Maybe you're just completely dissatisfied with where you're at in your life or your business, which I think sometimes leads us to these seasons where we have to really unpack. Why are we here? What do I need to learn from this?

So I can continue to grow in my thoughts, in my emotions, in my body, in my vision, to become that bigger version of myself so that I can do the things that I desire to do. It is not to say that you're not supposed to have these seasons, because I believe that these are the seasons that become the stepping blocks to your success. But it's what you do with these seasons. If you continue to spiral, if you continue to self sabotage, if you continue to live in dissatisfaction, I'm telling you, I am kind of at the tail end of one right now where lots of crying, lots of frustration, that feeling of white knuckling, and if I can allow myself, yes. To process those emotions, to really sit with those emotions and just kind of sit with that curiosity, I can soften that.

I don't need to find the answers to everything, but really allowing yourself to be led into the unknown on the next steps. One of the things that Brianna Weiss says in her book that I love so much is that if you know your next step, that means you're just recreating what you've already created. If you are on the path to unknown, that is a good sign, right? It goes back to breaking the habit of being yourself. If you're just being who you've always been, then you're going to always be creating what you've always created. And so it's good if you don't know what's next, it's good that you're sitting in the unknown. But like, what will that look like to navigate that?

What would your future self look back on this season and thank you for doing or feeling so that you can take this as a stepping block. So if you're in that season, my friend, I just want to encourage you. It's a good thing. It's a good thing. But let's make it even better by taking advantages of this season and leveraging the tools that you either have or can earn to really move through it in a way that you feel proud of. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope that you will get at least one of these books based on what I've shared here and or have read.

And if you end up getting one of these books and you read it or just end up getting one and you want to share with me, I would love for you to just shoot me a message over on Instagram and let me know. I always love hearing your insights and your takeaways and how you're implementing the information that you learn here. All right, my friend, I will see you next time. Hey, if you're ready to stand out online and get paying clients consistently without having to fumble your way through tech run ads or create complicated funnels, I want to invite you to join us in the category queen school where you're going to learn my simple, proven formula for getting clients online. It's risk free. You either make your money back or we'll give you a refund.

Just head over to kinseymachos.com/thecqschool and join today to get instant access. We'll see you inside.