Bri Seeley is The Entrepreneur Coach, TEDx Speaker and award winning business woman.

Welcome to A New Life podcast with Pamela Jean, where it's all about empowering women to empower more women. Get ready, friends, to create a new life. And here is your host, Pamela Jean. Hello, my friends and welcome to this week's episode of A New Life podcast. I am so happy that you've joined me today. I have a phenomenal guest and I can't wait for you to listen to Bree Seeley. She is an entrepreneur coach. You are in for a treat. She will help you balance business, help you step into your business with confidence, with pride, and go after everything that you deserve in your business. Bre is a TED talk speaker. She is an award winning businesswoman, and as I said, an entrepreneur coach who has hosted her own women's conference, which was phenomenal. There is so much that Bre has to offer us today. I'm excited she is here. Bree Seeley, welcome to A New Life podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure getting to know you and I am just so excited to have this conversation today.

You know, it's really fun when you go to events and you attend different things. I always realize and know that there's someone I am meant to meet and someone I am meant to know. And I had the pleasure of meeting you at a recent mixer here in Tulsa. So it was such an honor and pleasure and grabbing coffee with you was amazing. I think I could have talked for two days, but we both are busy and we have, we have businesses to run.

Yes.

So excellent. Bre, talk to me about your philanthropy, your new nonprofit that you're starting. Because I think women need to know what you're doing.

Yeah. So, you know, I'm actually going to start a little further back because the nonprofit came out of nine years of running my for profit and my whole platform has been women need to make more money in the world and we're not doing it through breaking the glass ceiling. So what's our other option? And our other option is entrepreneurship. So for the last nine years, I have been the entrepreneur coach. I have helped women all over the world start businesses, grow businesses, scale businesses. And I realized as part of my for profit, I really wanted to focus personally primarily on growing and scaling. But I also didn't want to leave behind the starting a business women, because that's one of the hardest parts of the journey is getting going. And a huge part of it is because we don't have the people around us who fully understand entrepreneurship. We're used to surrounding ourselves with other, say, corporate Employees or our families or friends that just aren't in that boat. And so I didn't want to leave those women hanging and was launching this conference. And then the conference revealed to me that it was spinning off into a nonprofit. And then of course, the question became, well, what impact is the nonprofit making? You know, we have to have a mission, we have to have a vision. What is that? And it's truly, I mean, it's a few things. It, it is building community between female entrepreneurs because like you said, that is such a huge part of it. But what we're doing is the program I've been running in my business for the last nine years to help women start businesses is now going to be run through the nonprofit. And we are currently in the process of building partnerships with companies to help us be able to pay for under resourced women to go through that program under scholarship. I think it's really important. You know, women that are currently don't have the resources to learn entrepreneurship. They don't have the resources to join communities. And we want to be able to remove those barriers and give them what they need to be successful in entrepreneurship so that they don't have to work 1012,$15 an hour jobs any longer. They can actively create their destiny and their financial freedom through entrepreneurship.

Excellent. That's fantastic. So one of my questions for you is when did you know, at what point in your journey did you know that you needed to create a solution to a problem that potentially was affecting you? Was it early in your career? Was it at your women's conference? Or when did you really realize that your purpose was bigger than for profit?

Well, you know, I think my purpose is, I think the for profit is a huge part of my purpose as well. You know, it is, it is a little hard. I do have to separate them a little bit just because of federal regulations. But the truth is, for me, both of them together are my legacy. And so, you know, I started my first business in 2007. I was 24 years old, 23 years old, and I started a fashion company. I did not know at that point that my purpose was. I didn't know at that point I had a purpose. I literally, I had studied fashion, I had two degrees in fashion. My grandma taught me how to sew when I was five. And I was basically like, well, I live in a place where I can't get a job in fashion, so I'm just going to start a business. And it wasn't even that. It was like, I'm going to sew one off bridesmaids and flower girl dresses. It wasn't even a business at that point. So I think that the purpose conversation, I think it's really important to highlight that it's definitely an unfolding. And even when I started this business nine years ago, I knew that there was something more for me. The universe had kind of revealed to me that there was something more than fashion. And so I shut down my fashion business. But even when I started this business, I didn't know what my impact was. And I think, I mean there's a part of me, I think that still doesn't even fully know what my impact is. I just learned on Monday that a client of mine just hit her first six figure month and this is a woman who was on the verge of bankruptcy five years ago. So you know, I think my purpose continually gets revealed to me in bigger and bigger ways. And that was one of that was my first client that has hit their six figure month, their first six figure month and you know, even on Monday, 48 hours ago, revealed to me that my purpose is so much greater than I even think it is. So I don't know if there's one defining moment or more like, you know, 365 days times 17 years of, you know, individual pebbles that keep getting placed in a jar showing me what that purpose and what that impact is in the world.

It's like looking at the road ahead knowing that you're just going to keep on the journey and the next thing will show itself to you that you need to latch onto, that you need to pour into.

Yeah, and that's, you know, starting a nonprofit was not on my to do list this year. It was not even in my awareness awareness to start a non profit. And every step I took with the conference revealed more to me. You know, oh, it's, it's going to be a non profit and oh, you're going to give out scholarships and oh, you're going to build this amazing community and oh, you know, I often say, I actually just had this conversation on my podcast that if I knew what like what the full road ahead was going to look like from the beginning, I don't know if I would have said yes. And so I think, I think the universe knows to give it to me in bite sized chunks because otherwise I just get too overwhelmed. And so the next step is always revealed to me when I need it and I just have to stay present in the moment, do what I can with what I have today and the rest of it unfolds that's an excellent.

Answer because I think ignorance is bliss sometimes when you don't know what you don't know. Because if you knew everything that would be coming your way, you would be like, I, I don't want any part of that that looks scary and that seems really hard.

It's a lot. And at 23, been shown where I would be today, I swear to you, I would have tapped out and been like, nope, I'm good. I.

Mean, yeah, that is not for me. I totally understand that. So if someone is listening today who is on the fence of whether or not to start their business, where they've had that dream has been showed to them. They have that nudge, that little nudge of saying there's something more for you than the nine to five. What advice do you give that woman?

So I like to, when I'm looking at a decision, I like to evaluate it through like this quadrant system. And it's looking at both the risk and the reward. But where I think people miss in this process is that they look at the risks and rewards of say, moving forward with that decision, but they fail to look at the risks and rewards of staying where they're at. Because there are risks with not saying yes. We are hyper focused in our culture of looking at the risks of like becoming an entrepreneur. But what are the risks of you not becoming an entrepreneur? What are the things that are going to hold you back if you say no to this decision and what are the rewards of you saying no to this decision? So I think it's really important. I literally draw like a cross on a piece of paper. And on the left hand side, the top one says yes, bottom one says no. Across the top, the left hand side says risk, the right hand side says reward. Because yes, there are risks with starting a business. There are also rewards of starting a business. Yes, there are rewards with saying no and deciding to stay where you are, but there are also risks associated with saying no and staying where you are. And so I think in order to make a really effective decision, you've got to look at the whole picture and not just one of the sides of the coin.

That's excellent advice. And I think there's something always to remember that whatever you say yes to in your life, you're saying no to something else. And you have to analyze what is the no? How important is that no? Is it a family member? Is it your children? Is it your spouse? Who are you saying no to? Because we can't say yes to everything. We have to Be a little bit more specific on what the yeses are, and they do have to be calculated and well thought through. That's great advice.

Well, I would even say, you know, the list of people you just mentioned, you know, a child, a significant other, whatever, whatever. You also need to be on that list. You know, if. If you're miserable at your 9 to 5 and you know that your mental health is suffering, that you are put on this earth for bigger purposes, for more things, for bigger impact, like, you have to consider that in your decision as well. Because I had my nine to five for eight years and actually had this conversation with my parents, I think it was about two years ago, and I was in a particularly bad point in my journey. I was. I was not doing well, and I had gone to Minnesota knowing that my parents would help ground me and that I could be taken care of. And, you know, my stepdad said to me, like, oh, you really should consider, like, going back and getting a job. And I looked at him for the first time in my entrepreneurial journey, and I was like, do you realize how depressed I. Like, yes, I'm in a bad spot now, but do you realize how depressed I was? When I had my 9 to 5, I literally got up every morning at the last possible second, threw together a breakfast, ran to the office, inhaled my breakfast on the way work, got all of my work done as quickly as I could so I could come home and go back to bed. I would wake up, have dinner, fall back asleep on the couch, wake up, move to the bed, go back to sleep, and do it all over again. I was miserable. I wasn't living. I was not living. And we really have to take those things into consideration just as much as the risks are of moving forward. Because I. I mean, I can't say, but had I stayed at that job, I would be a shell of a human today.

Well, and your quality of life is so important. And I think women in general forget to look at our quality of life. We forget to take care of ourselves first. Everyone else comes before us. We are sometimes the sacrificial lamb of a family, of a friendship, of a circumstance or of an office just because we don't want to ask. We. We can do it ourselves. We're. We're superwoman. We don't need any help. And. And we end up just dying in our own way because we're not taking care of ourselves first.

And we have to remember that. So many women I talk to say, like, oh, well, I can't be selfish taking care of yourself is not selfish because your children, if you have children, I don't. I have pets. But your children are watching you and they're learning from you. And if you're not taking care of yourself, guess what? They're not going to take care of themselves. How you take care of yourself impacts your relationship with your significant other. You want to have a happy relationship, a happy partnership, you have to take care of yourself. And so I think that we just, we have a really skewed perspective on what taking care of ourselves actually means and the impact that it actually has on not just ourselves, but everyone around us.

Yeah, I'm going to piggyback on that just a little bit, Bri, because I'm very passionate in that belief as well, that the better we take care of ourselves, the better we can care for those that we love and care for. The better we put our. The more we put ourselves first, the more we can pour into other people. And it's so important that we don't look at it as selfishness, as being. Loving yourself, as being arrogant. It's not arrogant at all. We're meant to love ourselves and we're also meant to teach the people in our lives how to love us, how we are. We require love. If we don't love ourselves and teach other people how to love us, they are not going to do it. Right?

Yep. My first priority every single day is what do I need to feel great today? And that is how I start my day. Every day is a little different. This morning it was having my cat lay on top of me for an hour. Well, you know, I read some stuff on the Internet and that was, that's what made me feel great today. Yesterday morning I was on my meditation cushion working with my future self. You know, tomorrow morning is. While we're recording this, spoiler alert. Tomorrow morning is Thanksgiving. I know for you listening, it's already. But my how I feel great. Tomorrow morning is going to look differently because it's a holiday and we have, you know, people coming over. And so I'm going to need extra taking care of myself in order to take care of them.

In order to show up for them. You have to show up for yourself first.

Yep. And it, it is, it has become a non negotiable in my life. I used to wake up, like I said, with my day job and just run right into life. And as I mentioned, I was miserable. I then carried that into entrepreneurship because it's what I knew, again, miserable, you know, like. And so I think I made this Shift, I think it was around 20, I'd gone to a conference and I met Hal Elrod at a, at my table for this conference and learned for the first time about the miracle morning. And what is a morning practice and why do you do a morning practice, which is the most important thing. It is not what you do in your morning practice, it is why you do it. And that really shifted the trajectory for me. I, that is why I shut down my fashion business because it wasn't making me feel good. It's why I stepped into this, it's why, I mean it's everything about how I live my life. Because we're not, we weren't put on this planet to be working machines. We're not machines. We were meant to live. We're meant to enjoy the lives that we create for ourselves. Which is another thing that I see a lot of entrepreneurs negating in their businesses. They are working so hard, they're overworking and they're under living. And I think we need to really flip this on its head if we as women want to be sustainable. Sustainable in business, Absolutely.

I have a question, Bri. When you closed your fashion business, did you have a period of, did you go through a grieving period? Did you go through a period of self doubt? What was that like for you? Because I'm imagining the woman listening to this right now thinking I hate my job. It's sucking the life out of me. I have this dream to do something bigger. I have this dream to start a business. What was that like for you when you made that decision to shut down that business? Did you go through that feeling of failure or inadequacy? Did your self talk become a problem? What was that like for you?

In one word, it was crippling it. You know, I had wrapped up so much of my identity around being a fashion designer. You know, you go to especially. I was living in la. Oh, what do you do? I'm a fashion designer. Oh, that's so fancy. Yes, it is fancy. Let me tell you all about it, right?

Like let me tell you how I'm fancy.

So, so much of my identity was wrapped up in this thing that I did in the world. And I phrase it purposely because it's not who I was, it's what I did. There's a difference. And I had about a nine month period and, and I will say I was concurrently deconstructing while I was also building. I didn't have the luxury to not be doing something and so I had hired a coach to help me start this business. But a lot of the work she and I did together was around reframing my narratives and shifting my identity. And so I really had to look at what my value was in the world, who I wanted to be, the kind of impact that I wanted to make. And did I want something that just looked fancy on the outside but felt terrible on the inside and that was racking up more and more and more debt? Or did I truly want to build a sustainable life and a sustainable business that I not only get to pour into, but also gets to pour into me? And so I had a nine month period. I mean, I say it, and I don't think people fully comprehend, but, like, the number of days in that nine month period that were just spent with me in the fetal position in my bed crying. Um, there was one particularly poignant one where a friend of mine texted me out of the blue and said, bri Seeley, you're a rock star. You are such an inspiration. And I read it, and immediately in my mind I was like, that's a lie. That's not true about me. And I got in the fetal position and just cried for the rest of the day because. And then I had to look at, like, I actually believe that about myself. I believe about myself that I'm not making an impact in the world, that I'm not inspirational, that I'm just some bump on a log. Like, I really, truly believed that about myself. And so I had to really, truly reframe how I saw myself, who I knew myself to be, what was on the inside of me, rather than what was on the outside of me. And it was definitely about a nine month process. I whittled myself down to bare bones, not physically, but, like, emotionally and energetically. And then the 10th month in that process, I had my first five figure month in my business. Thank you. It was as a direct result of that inner work that really helped me create the successful foundation for the business that I still currently have nine years later.

That's fantastic. And thank you for that transparency, Bri, because it's so true. Sometimes you have to burn something to the ground and then rebuild it in the way that has the purpose wrapped around it. Not just how it looks on the outside, but how you feel on the inside. I think that's so important. And I appreciate your transparency and clarity on that.

Yeah. There was this beautiful quote I'm trying to. I have, like a pile of notebooks on my desk. I'm trying to find it quickly. But it was something along the lines of there are so many nutrients in the ashes. I wrote it down. I don't know where I wrote it though. Is the. This is welcome to my life. This is how I. But this idea that, you know, I think as women, we have this concept that we have to hold it all together and that we can't falter and that we can't have quote, unquote failures or that we can't walk away from things that aren't aligned for us and that we can't burn stuff down. And the thing that I will say is that the burning down process, not only is it cathartic, it feels good. There are nutrients in the ashes. And I think it's just. It's such a really beautiful idea that we can take those ashes of what we've burned and use them to feed and fuel what's next for us, Our next chapter, our next step, whatever that. That next phase for us is.

Well, I think before the next door can open, you have to let that door stay closed. And sometimes out of fear, out of anxiousness or whatever, we feel like we can't let that door shut. We're just to, you know, shove your foot in there so it just doesn't quite shut all the way. Because you wrap your identity around something that really isn't who you are.

Well, and it's scary to let go of what we've known. We know it, you know, like it's. It's tangible reality for us. I had a friend who came to me a few years ago and was like, debating whether or not to leave their relationship. And I was like, you know, if you don't let go of what's not working, you literally cannot allow in what's gonna be aligned for you. So you get to choose holding onto something that feels terrible and that is not serving you, or let that go so that you can then grab onto or hold on to or, you know, whatever that looks like for you. What is aligned and what is gonna fill you up and make you feel good on a regular basis.

That's excellent, excellent advice. So if. If you're a woman who is in a. Sit in your work, in your personal life, wherever you are, who knows what you're doing every day is not for you. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, friends. You will get through it. It's okay to let doors close. It's okay to let things burn down so you can step into what you were meant for and step into a bigger purpose. Everything that we walk away from is setting us up for the next big thing.

Well, and I'd like to add on to that and say, like, especially if you're already an entrepreneur, I think that when we, when we have businesses and we're running a business and things are fine and, you know, they're working, we want more. I think that this is especially true for those women because, you know, we tell stories of, well, what I, what I'm doing is already working. Why would I burn it down and rebuild? Or why would I add an addition onto my house that's already holding me and having enough space and comfort for me? And I think that entrepreneurs who are already in the game, I think it's almost especially hard for those women to make space for what's next and let go of what they've been doing in order to adopt what they need to be doing. It's a mindset that I see a lot with established entrepreneurs is that they are like, well, but what I'm doing is working, so, like, why would I change it? And again, it's that, like, you have to let go of good if you're committed to great.

Oh, I love that. That, that is perfect. That's so perfect. And I think women feel sometimes icky about making exponential amounts of money. That there's a, there's a, there's a quiet. You put your hand over your mouth when you're, when you're talking about money, we don't want to talk too loudly about it. But the power in the world when a whim. A woman has wealth, when a woman is financially independent, the power and the impact that women can have on the world is absolutely tremendous. And it's not about being greedy, it's not about being selfish. But we get to make decisions not only for ourselves, but for those people that we love the most that are not tied to the dollar. If you have abundance. And quite honestly, the more abundance that we have as women, the more abundantly we can give.

Yeah. And this, this is part of why I like to talk about money is because women don't have a lot of role models when it comes to that. A lot of men are out there screaming from the rooftops how much money they're making and they're super proud of it. But as women, we're supposed to like, sit down and shut up.

Right?

And you know, even being able to say, like, one of my clients just had their first six figure month, like, I screamed that from the rooftops. You should for you. Oh my gosh, I made the. Well, I didn't make them. But I encouraged the room full of women that I was in to give her a standing ovation because I think that we should be celebrating those things way more. Because it's true. Exactly what you said. When we have money, we get to make different decisions in the world. And we need to be the ones in the rooms making those decisions and contributing to those decisions. And we don't get in those rooms if we ourselves are struggling to take care of our own basic needs. So, I mean, I could say I would not have been able to start this nonprofit this year if it wasn't for my for profit. And I now am getting to make a bigger impact because I have set myself up for incredible revenue, not just for myself, but for my team in a way that I don't think I could have conceptualized nine years ago.

Well, I am so excited for what you're building and what you're growing, Bri. And it's an honor to be able to walk alongside you, cheer you on, be in your corner, and do anything I can to help spread the word for what you're doing. Because I believe in your mission, I believe in your non profit and just really enjoy how you're pouring into other people. Women have a stigma about getting too close to other women. We feel there's competition, there's something that's not okay unless you're a close personal friend. We just have a standoff feeling. And I think what we do is we allow our own personal insecurities, step into our greatest successes and our greatest relationships of other people that are just doing the same thing we are doing.

Yeah, yeah. That was very. I mean, it was very evidenced by our coffee and how quickly we were able to, you know, get vulnerable with each other. And I think part of the reason there is that stigma is that so many women just have walls up. And admittedly so, you know, it's been hard out there for us and we've been taught to be in competition and that that's the norm. And I think it takes a few of us to start just really showing up authentically and showing up vulnerably. And what's interesting is when I do, because that's just how I show up. I'm me. I show up the same way to my cat as I do to a room full of 200 women. It is what it is. And so the more of us that can be out there doing that, showing how it's done. The event I hosted on Monday, I got text message after text message after text message from women Saying, it's so amazing to watch you show up and bring other women together and show. Show up transparently and vulnerably. And so cheers to more of us doing more of that.

Absolutely. Well, let's. Let's start it. Let's do it. Let's start that little butterfly effect and let's do it. Okay, I'm going to end our conversation today, Bri, with some rapid fire questions. I have three questions. Rapid fire. Here we go. Where do you see yourself in five years?

First things first, I am aiming at being a seven figure business owner. I think that we will still live in Tulsa, although I can see myself traveling a lot more with a lot more speaking engagements and excited for the nonprofit to also be serving 100 scholarships a year.

Fabulous. What advice would you give the younger you start sooner?

I think that I just like all the things we were talking about today. I did not weigh the risk of staying where I was at soon enough and I wish that I would have started sooner.

Excellent. What is your favorite thing to do in your downtime?

I have recently dove back into reading fiction books. I actually, literally right before our conversation was at the library, returning one and picking up another. You know, when you're in business, it's so everyone's like, oh, you need to read a business book every week. And the consuming really just got to me. And so I really have been enjoying young adult fantasy novels and just like getting into worlds and places in my brain and joy and creativity in a way that I cut myself off from for a very long time.

That's awesome. My gosh, Bri, thank you so much for taking some time today to speak to my community, to share your heart and be vulnerable today. Friends, if you have a chance to work with Bri, see her speak, plug into her podcast. Please take that opportunity if you will. Bri, will you share with the audience the best way to get to know you through your business, to work with you? What is your, your website, your podcast, kind of give everybody the details.

Yep. The top three places to find me are my website, which is my name, briseilly.com also my podcast, which is the Entrepreneur Coach podcast. It's on all the major platforms, including YouTube. So just Google it, you'll find it. And then last but not least, Instagram is probably where I hang out the most and my handle is briseilly. I'm also on literally every other platform. I should be the the first Bri Sealy that pops up on any and all platform. So just look for my name.

You will find me Excellent. Okay, Bri, thank you so much again for being here. And friends, thank you for listening to this podcast today. If you have someone in your life that needs an uplifting female driven podcast, please, like, subscribe. Join this community and we will see you next time. Have a great day. Thank you for joining us today on a New Life podcast. We will see you next time.