Stop Overworking and Underliving: How to Redefine Ambition and Create Lasting Success with Bri Seeley

PodcastMindset

May 14

Episode 952: Show Notes

Ever felt like you're chasing milestones that look great on paper but leave you feeling empty? This episode gives you permission to pause, reset, and redefine what success means to you.

Bri Seeley is no stranger to ambition, but she's flipped the script on what it looks like to succeed. As a TEDx speaker, success coach, and award-winning businesswoman, she helps entrepreneurs achieve big, bold goals without burnout. Her signature “Defy” process invites you to ditch the hustle, tune into your truth, and take action from a place of alignment, not anxiety. In this episode, we dig into how childhood experiences shape our drive, why stillness is more powerful than hustle, and how to stop outsourcing your self-worth to external results. Bri also breaks down how to live like your future self today (no extra $50K or perfect plan required!), and why small, intentional steps can lead to radical transformation.

If you feel stuck on the productivity hamster wheel, this is your nudge to slow down, zoom out, and build success on your terms without overworking or “underliving” in the process. Tune in to start defying the rules that never worked for you in the first place!

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Redefining Success & Ambition On Your Own Terms

If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing all the “right” things, climbing the career ladder, hitting the goals, and still feel like something’s missing, this one’s for you. At the core of this conversation is a foundational question: What does success mean to you?

It’s a question too few of us stop to ask, especially when our ambition is fueled by trauma, expectations, or a need to prove ourselves. Bri shares a sixth-grade story that still resonates: she kept exceeding her reading goals, only to be told to do more, and more, and more, and then, when she finally missed the mark, she got a C. “That is every client I work with,” she says. “We’re all wandering around telling ourselves we're not enough, or I wasn't productive enough today,” even when we’re already doing 10 times more than the average human.

Why Slowing Down Gets You Further Than Striving

Let’s be real. Ambition can be a trap if you never stop to ask whose dream you’re chasing. Bri reminds us that so many of us who are highly ambitious are aiming at the wrong bullseye.

She goes on to unpack the power of stillness. Not in a woo-woo way, but as a real strategy for clarity and recalibration. Whether it’s meditation, journaling, coloring, or pulling a tarot card, she uses these tools to hear her own voice over the noise of external pressure, “to reconnect me with me,” as she puts it. “If I'm not satisfied with my life, what’s the point of the overworking and the underliving if I’m the one living it and I’m miserable?” Enough said.

How to Defy Reality & Feel the Future Now

This is where things get really juicy! Bri flips the entire success script with a single idea: What if you could feel the way you want to feel right now, without changing anything in your physical environment?

She explains that when we delay joy, freedom, or peace until after we reach a certain milestone, we’re actually just pushing the finish line further away. She likens it to two magnets repelling each other. Instead, she helps people “defy reality” by flipping those magnets the other way around and aligning with their future self today. That means identifying what you want, dismantling the voice that says you don’t deserve it yet, and taking small actions from that empowered place. Want to create a ripple effect? “Standing still does not create a ripple effect,” Bri reminds us. Little steps every day compound into massive change.

Small Steps, Big Shifts, Sustainable Momentum

Big, audacious goals are great, but trying to get there all at once is a shortcut to burnout. Bri breaks it down with simple math: if you want a six-figure business, all you have to do is create $274 a day for 365 days. That’s totally doable! It’s all about working backwards, setting intentional markers, and letting one or two small actions a day add up.

But this isn’t about hustle. If you’re feeling depleted and overwhelmed, and you feel like you just need to go put your feet in the grass, it’s okay to let what you did today be enough. Bri encourages flexibility and experimentation, not rigid plans. Like navigating the Bog of Eternal Stench in the movie Labyrinth, the next stepping stone doesn’t appear until you’re already on the first one. You don’t need to map the whole journey. Just take the next step.

Breaking Free from the Addiction to Busywork

We’re conditioned from an early age to follow a checklist: homework, gold stars, productivity as proof of worth. But as adults, that structure can quietly morph into an addiction to busyness. For high achievers, output can become a stand-in for self-worth, but all that hustle comes at a cost. Bri invites us to get radically honest: Does success to you look like working 10 hours a day, or does success look like doing the 20% that matters and then giving yourself permission to go sit in the sun?

Reclaiming your time, energy, and joy by breaking this rhythm isn’t easy. It can feel like breaking an addiction. It might even take a full-on reckoning! Regardless of whether you think you’re addicted to busy work or not, it can be transformative to think about where you’re at, where you want to be, and surrendering. Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is stop doing so much!

Finding Your 20% to Work Less & Align More

Bri shares some actionable advice for determining which 20% moves the needle and identifying the things that make the biggest difference so that you can live your life in between. Try sitting down at the end of each month and assessing what worked and what didn’t. Where did you put your energy and attention that provided results? And where did you spin your wheels?

Empirical data is hard to argue with, but it’s also important to determine what felt good and what didn’t. In our efforts to stop overworking and underliving, the point is not to feel terrible. Focus on what feels aligned and exciting, and spend less time doing the things that you dread. You CAN actually feel good while you’re building your dream business and achieving your impossible dreams! Purpose and intention are key. Bri suggests giving yourself permission to step away from your ambition, even if just for a moment.

It’ll still be there when you get back, but you’ll show up with clearer focus and renewed energy.

Quote This

“If you create $274 every day for 365 days, you have a six-figure business.”

—Bri Seeley

Highlights

Redefining Success & Ambition On Your Own Terms. [0:01:25]
Why Slowing Down Gets You Further Than Striving. [0:06:10]
How to Defy Reality & Feel the Future Now. [0:09:05]
Small Steps, Big Shifts, Sustainable Momentum. [0:16:35]
Breaking Free from the Addiction to Busywork. [0:25:50]
Finding Your 20% to Work Less & Align More. [0:29:55]

OUR GUEST:

Bri Seeley

TEDx Speaker, Success Coach and award winning business woman Bri Seeley works with ambitious, high achievers to defy reality by bringing their most unrealistic goals to life without overworking, under living or sacrificing themselves for their audacious visions. Bri uses her signature DEFY process to help you design and create long-term and sustainable success – unapologetically.