Female Disruptors: Bri Seeley of The Unapologetic Entrepreneur On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
Enjoy the journey. I tend to focus more on the destination than the journey. Even when I’m on roadtrips, my energy is already at the end of the journey rather than being present in the moment. I began to shift this approach in 2017 and it’s really helped me on a day-to-day basis. I’ve found a greater sense of calm, connection and presence. Plus, it helps me to dwell in the energy of success more because I’m celebrating every step I take, rather than simply the outcome.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bri Seeley.
After struggling through her first eight years of entrepreneurship, Bri pivoted from her award winning fashion brand into entrepreneur coaching. During her years in fashion, Bri was able to achieve some remarkable milestones but she was never able to create the money and time freedom she desired as an Entrepreneur. Within her first year of her coaching business, she went from being unable to pay her rent to creating over 6-figures in revenue.
Over the last six years as an Entrepreneur Coach, Bri has taught thousands of entrepreneurs how to create long-term, sustainable success… on their terms!
She knows that one-size never fits all, so her approach is customized and tailor made to each client. Bri works with established and emerging businesses using her extensive knowledge to increase their impact, monetize their vision, laser-focus their actions, streamline their systems and boost their profits.
Bri was awarded a Silver Stevie Award in 2020 for Coach of the Year — Business and a Bronze Stevie Award in 2020 for Woman of the Year — Business Services. She is a member of the Forbes Coaches Council, the author of the best-selling Permission to Leap, the top Entrepreneur Coach on Google and has been seen on The TODAY Show, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Yahoo! and more.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I was led to becoming an Entrepreneur Coach through serendipity and intuition. It was 2015 and I was celebrating my eighth anniversary of my fashion label. While my business was doing well, my frustration with the pace of growth and the industry was increasing more and more.
A series of events including attending a wealth seminar, totaling my car and a meditation led me to close my fashion label and venture into my next chapter without a plan.
Once I had the space to begin exploring what my next move would be, I quickly realized that my colleagues, friends and connections had been asking me for years to help them start and grow their businesses. At the time, I had declined because I was a fashion designer, not a business expert. However, in evaluating my options moving forward the signs were clearly pointing me in the direction of Entrepreneur Coaching.
I hired a coach for myself to teach me everything I needed to know for a service based business and got to work. Within a year, I had a 6-figure coaching business and have been going strong for six years.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
One thing that’s drilled into the coaching industry is for coaches to develop their “signature proven process.” For years, I thought there was something wrong with me because this approach never sat right with me. It wasn’t until last year that I realized why.
When I ran my fashion business, I struggled with standard sizing because one size never fits all. Every body is different and even two bodies that wear the same size don’t have the same dimensions.
To me, coaching is no different. There is no standard process or advice that works for every person, all the time. Copy/paste “proven” processes never work for everyone.
My business and messaging are aimed at breaking down this approach and showing the reality of business — it takes a custom approach to get real results. I am disrupting the cookie cutter approach to business and helping entrepreneurs access their one-of-a-kind path to creating their success on their terms.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I wasn’t always the disruptor I am today. When I first began my coaching and consulting business, I tried to do it like everyone told me to. I tried all the proven methods for success. And it didn’t work. I wasted tens of thousands of dollars on trying to fit myself in the boxes everyone touted as silver bullets in the coaching industry.
What’s funny is, the biggest months in my business have all come from intuitive guidance. Every big move that’s happened in my business has first been spurred from an insight in meditation. Which has been the guiding light for me to embody the title of Disruptor even more.
I don’t want to see others waste time, energy and money trying to build businesses which are out of alignment. I feel it is my duty to speak up and speak out against there being one foolproof path to success.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
I seek out mentors who are outside my industry and who don’t know the exact ins and outs of my business. The reason I do this is because they give me disruptive perspectives and aren’t limited by what’s been done before.
One of my mentors is Naveen Jain. Naveen’s entrepreneurial experience is in the technology field, which is very different from both fashion and coaching. I love talking to Naveen about business because he approaches things from a radically different perspective than most people in my industry would.
Naveen is one of the first people who helped me see past the title of “coach” in terms of my vision for what I’m here to create. We had a conversation where he reflected to me the impact I make in people’s lives. It’s because of Naveen that I’ve been able to expand my business past the typical coaching model.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Disrupting for me is less about dismantling the old way and more about creating the new way. I see a lot of people disrupting simply for the sake of being disruptive. That’s the ‘not so positive’ approach to disruption. This approach is more aligned with destruction, rather than creation.
I have been seeing this perspective pushed heavily in the Artificial Intelligence space. People are obsessed with replacing everything human in our world with artificial intelligence, simply because they can. However, they’re failing to address the short and long term implications of this on our current economic infrastructure, our job market and our mental health.
Disruption that looks to improve, evolve and re-structure systems is a much more holistic and beneficial approach to making our world a better place, rather than “break first and ask questions later.”
I genuinely look to disrupt the coaching industry because I can see exactly how the current “proven process” model is creating more harm than good, and how embracing a bespoke approach will create better results for entrepreneurs in the long-run.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
- Enjoy the journey. I tend to focus more on the destination than the journey. Even when I’m on roadtrips, my energy is already at the end of the journey rather than being present in the moment. I began to shift this approach in 2017 and it’s really helped me on a day-to-day basis. I’ve found a greater sense of calm, connection and presence. Plus, it helps me to dwell in the energy of success more because I’m celebrating every step I take, rather than simply the outcome.
- Fear is not an indicator to stop. I mentioned the car accident in my story above, but what I failed to mention is that car accident almost stopped me from starting my business. 12-hours prior to the car accident, I had signed a contract to hire a business coach who was going to help me launch my new business. When the car accident happened, I was faced with a significant amount of fear because I didn’t have the proper insurance and wasn’t sure how I’d afford it all. Instead of letting the fear bring me to a place of contraction, I used it as a spark to ignite my inner greatness. I chose to repurpose the fear to help me expand. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life.
- Follow the whispers or be prepared for the megaphone. I haven’t always been open to hearing my intuition and it’s led me to several catastrophic experiences which could have been avoided. One such instance was the car accident I’ve mentioned. Another was in relation to my 7-year corporate job. I knew for years I didn’t want to work that job. I had many opportunities to figure out a new path forward, but I refused to listen to them. Instead of being proactive and finding a solution for myself, I was gifted a solution in the form of an email letting me know my pay was being cut in half. Had I followed the whispers, I could have created a path out of my job on my terms and allowed myself to have an easier transition. Instead, I was forced out of the position and had to figure it out as I went. Now, I pay attention to the whispers so I don’t have to navigate those megaphone moments.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
My mission is to eradicate the 50% failure rate for entrepreneurs and to help 100,000 female entrepreneurs surpass 6-figures in recurring yearly income in the next 10 years. Right now, 90% of female entrepreneurs never hit the 6-figure mark in their businesses. That statistic is unacceptable. I am going to shake things up by arming female entrepreneurs with everything they need to succeed past their wildest dreams, create financial freedom for themselves and provide the world with equitable solutions.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Women have had to play in spaces which weren’t designed for us to succeed for so long, we are ingrained with the mindset to go with what has been done in the past rather than creating our own paths, systems and models to move the world forward. When we do try to create our own paths forward, we’re questioned and it causes us to question ourselves.
One of the biggest examples I’ve seen of this is when SheEO came onto the investing scene. The founder, Vicky Saunders, was told over and over again that her idea would never work. Male investors went out of their way to let Vicky know her idea was not only not feasible, but crazy. Which was not the reality. In fact, SheEO has been immensely successful. They’ve funded over 75 ventures with over $5,000,000 and a 95% repayment rate and triple digit revenue growth in under five years.
As women, we need to remember that just because it hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it can’t be done. And just because someone tells us we’re crazy, it isn’t a reason to back away from our vision.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
I read ‘The Alchemist’ on a yearly basis. Everytime I read it, there is a new perspective which deeply impacts how I move through the world. My most recent read of the book illuminated this concept: “When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he has never dreamed of when he first made the decision.”
The biggest lesson 2020 gifted me was to follow my intuitive senses and surrender into what the outcome is without controlling it. I gave myself permission to make decisions, let go of the outcome and trust that life will carry me towards my greatest possible destiny.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
The movement I’m spearheading is to get more women out of corporate and into entrepreneurship. We will not achieve parity by staying in the corporate world. If women truly want to break the glass ceiling, it will come from us disrupting the system and creating our own rules.
I’m here to help women make more money on our terms because when women make money, we funnel 90% of it back into our families and our communities. Whereas men only redistribute 30–40% back into those same places. Women already have the power to create a new model for the world’s wealth, to close the gender gap and to create a more equitable economy. I plan to do everything in my power to expedite this possibility into reality.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Never take advice from someone you wouldn’t trade places with.” -Kelly Clarkson
When I left my corporate job and became a full-time entrepreneur for the first time, I was inundated with messages to get a job. But everyone who shared that perspective with me were people who were unhappy in their careers. I knew that if I followed their advice, I would eventually end up living that life. I began to filter out advice from people who weren’t living the vision I had for my life and surrounded myself with people who embodied the same values as me.
How can our readers follow you online?
The best three places to find me are:
- My website — briseeley.com
- Instagram — instagram.com/briseeley
- Clubhouse — @BriSeeley
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Female Disruptors: Bri Seeley of The Unapologetic Entrepreneur On The Three Things You Need To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.